
Glass. 
Book. 



H 



+ 



^ 



t>^a 



\ 




^ 






HURPtY-GliAPllS: 



SKETCHES OF SCENERY, CELEBRITIES AND SOCIETY, 



TAKEN FROM LIFE. 



BY N. PARKER WILLIS. 



*' 9TICK A PIN THERE." 



AUBURN AND ROCHESTER: 

ALDEN AND BEARDSLEY. 

1856. 



To) 33^^ 



Kntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1951, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 

ol New York. 



Transfer 
W-S. Soldiers Home LlbraiV 
Jan. 25, 1933 



C. W. BENEDICT, 

Stereotyper and Printer 

aoi waUam rt-jN-Y. 



TO 

MORRIS, 

BfY FKIEND AKD PAKTJSTEE, 
THIS VOLUME 

IS INSCBIBED 



t 



PREFACE. 

The following papers, though never before published in a 
volume, have appeared in the Journal, of which the author is 
Editor. They were " editorials" — " articles" written, that is to 
say, at one sitting, and printed from ink scarce dry. This will 
justify the lame imder which they appear — hurry-graiiha — for 
the invention of which much wanted word, the author begs pardon 
till it comes into general use. 

One other apologetic difference between this and books written 
at leisure : — the subjects have been chosen from nearness at 
hand, or from their occupancy of public attention at the moment, 
or from being apt to the interest or conversation of the passing 
hour. Some allowance should be made, perhaps, for the 
journalist who thus takes topics as they come, and writes without 
the advantaae of prepared taste or previous attention. 

One exfrsineous value may attach to these sketches. They are 
copies from the kaleidoscope of the hour. They are one man's 
imprint from parts of the world's doings at one place and time. 
New York, and what interested it in the middle of the nineteenth 



iv PKEFACE. 



century, will be a chapter for History to which this volume will 
contribute. The author, long ago, made up his mind that the 
unreal world was overworked — that the Past and Future were 
overvalued — and that the Immediate and Present, and what one 
saw occurring, and could truthfully describe, were as well worth 
the care and pains of authorship as what one could only imagine 
or take from hearsay. He has written, therefore, upon topics as 
th.0 Hour presented them ; and though his impressions ana 
•vpinloES aij^ht have been modified by keeping and re-considering, 
^\xej bavc th-^ valce, ~5 he b J'p?s they will be allowed the apology, 
">t hurry-gr&pl^ froin iL^c rr^ {' •vr*'^'^ by. 
.New York, TfZri-7£*^^ ''t'^. 



t. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER FROM PLYMOUTH. 

PAOB 

Politic Principle of Progress — ^Daniel Webster at table — ^Reason for 
Midsummer Dinner at Plymouth — Description of Guests — Peculiarity 
of " Influential Bostonians"— -Their Contempt for Two Extremes — 
Complimentary Speech to a certain Charming Person — Octogenarian's 
Gallantry— Mr. Webster's " Hay-fever"— Picture of the Table— Judge 
Warren — Webster's Speech on the Removal of the Cloth, its Topics 
and Manner — Change of Tone and Feeling in the Parting Address- 
Sketch of Mr. Webster's Countenance as left by Illness — Speeches by 
Everett, Winthrop, Wayland and Others — Drive to Mr. Webster's 
house at Marshfield — Its Good Example in one Point — Propriety of 
Rural Retirement to distinguished Old Age — Look of Plymouth — ^The 
Warren Homestead — Spirited Letter of John Adams — Letters of 
Chippevvay Chief and of King Philip. . . . .11 

LETTER FROM NEW BEDFORD. 
Effect of Steamer Starting from the Wharf — Piece of a Town afloat — 
The Phenixed Boat — Cost of Empire State — Vocation of Captain- 
Spectacle of Supper in a Cabin Two Hundred and Fifty Feet Long — 
Eli'ect on Manners — Sumptuous Entertainment for Fifty Cents — Ex- 
cuse for Statistics — New Bedford and its Wealth — Climate and Indus- 
try — Geographic Peculiarities — " Placer" for Beauty — The Acushnet 
— Old Fashioned Prejudices and Modern Luxury — Statesmanlike 
Remedy for Decline of Local Trade and Industry — Proposed Visit to 
the Raised Le'i of New Endand, etc., etc. . . 24 



Ti CONTENTS. 



FAai 

LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 

System and Monotony — Booted Leg of Massachusetts — First Step below 
the Garter — Yarmouth and its Vertebral Street — Sentiment on Cape 
Cod — Stage-driver's Plenipotentiary Vocation — Delicate Messages de- 
livered in Public — More taste for Business than Rural Seclusion — 
Sameness and Plainness of Building — Republican Equality — 'Cute Lad 
— Yanno the Handsome Chief — Cape Cod Poetess — Comparative 
Growth of Trees and Captains — Boxed Gardens — Misfortune of too 
Good Company — Centenarian Servant known as "The Old Gentle- 
man" — Man One Hundred and Nine Years Old, who had never been 
out of Temper, etc., etc. ... . . . . 32 

LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 

Down the Ankle of Cape Cod to Heel and Instep — Amputated Limb of 
a Town — Look of Thrift — Contentment on Barren Sand — Primitive 
paxt of the Cape, unreached by Steam and Rails — Ladies' Polkeis — 
Statistics of Mackerel Fishery — Three Prominent Features of the 
Cape, Grave Yards, School Houses and One other — Praiseworthy 
Simplicity of Public Taste — Partial Defence of "Dandies" — ^The 
"Blue Fish" — Class of Beauty on the Cape — Comparative Vegeta- 
tion and Humanity, etc., etc. . . . . . iO 

LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 

Lagging Pen — Sketch of Cape Cod Landladies — Relative Consequence 
of Landlords — Luxury peculiar to Public Houses in this Part of the 
Country — Old friend of "Morris and Willis" — Strap of the Cape Spui 
— Land like " the Downs of England — Sea-farming and Land-farming 
— Solitary Inn — Double Sleep — Hollow of Everett's Cape " Arm" — 
Pear tree over two hundred years old — Native Accent and Emphasis 
•^Overworked Women — Contrivance to Keep the Soil from blowing 
away — Bridge of Winds — Adaptability of Apple-trees — Features of 
this Line of Towns — Curious Attachment to Native Soil— The Venice 
of New England, etc., etc. , . . . 5» 



CONTENTS. vii 



LETTER FROM THE END OF CAPE COD. 
Descriptive of the last few Miles of Cape Cod, and the Town at its Ex- 
tremity. . ... . . . . . 58 

LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 
Noteworthy peculiarity of Cape Cod — Effects of Sand on the Female 
Figure — Palm of the " Protecting Arm" — Pokerish Ride through 
Foliage — Atlanticity of unfenced Wilderness — Webster's Walk and 
Study of Music — Outside Man in Lat. 41° — Athletic Fishing — Good 
Eating at Gifford's Hotel — American " Turbot" — Wagon Passage over 
the Bottom of the Harbor — Why there are no Secrets in Province- 
town — Physiognomy of the People — Steamer to Boston, etc., etc 65 

LETTER FROM WALTON. 

Freedom from Work — Excursion on the new Scenery opened by the 
Erie Railroad — Walton, on the West Branch of the Delaware. — Plank 
Road — Sugar Maples — Stumps out — Spots to Live in — Cheapness of 

— Life here. ... ... 72 

LETTER FROM THE DELAWARE. 
Furnishing of Carpet Bag — Whip-poor-%vill's Reminder — ^Difference of 
Fatigue in Walking and Riding on Horseback — Coquetting of Cadosia 
and Maiden Usefulness — Oldest Delaware Hunter — Ride of Twelve 
Miles through the untrodden Wilderness — Dinner in the Forest — ^A 
Hundred Trout Caught on a single Ride — Desireableness of Walton as 
a Summer Residence — Promise of Description of Scenery on the Erie 
Railroad. ....... 77 

LETTER FROM THE FORK OF THE DELAWARES. . 82 

LETTER FROM THE EAST BRANCH OF THE DELAWARE. 

Hundred Miles betweeen Dinner and Tea — Broadway lined with 
Funerals — Daily Losses of Sunrise — Falls of the Sawkill — Delaware 
Ferryman — Milford and its Character — Search for the Falls — Under, 
ground Organ— River on. End — Likeness of General Cass in the Rock 
— Bare-toed Ho.^tess, etc. ...... 87 



viii CONTENTS. 

FAQE 

LETTER FROM MONTROSE. 
Port Jervis — Takes Two or Three Yankees to Start a New Town — 
Punctual Anaconda — Difference between Railroads in America and in 
England — Fall from a Mountain-top — Summit Level and the Storucco 
—Road in the Air, Passing over a Village — Great Bend — Cold Ride to 
Montrose — Edith May's Ownership of Silver Lake — Her " Bays" and 
Bay Horses — Rose's Villa in Ruins — Pic-nic Dinner in the Summer- 
house — Negro Precedence — Complimentary Kindness of my Landlord 
— Celibacy of the Susquehannah's " Intended," etc. . . 94 

LETTER FROM LAKE MAHOPAC. 
Right of Genius and Scenery to Visits of Admiring Recognition — Foun- 
tain-head of the Croton and Lake Mahopac — Harlem Railway to Cro- 
ton Falls — Two Instances of High-bred Politeness — Yacht Fanny — 
Lodging under the Eaves — Drive to Mountain and View — Lakes of 
Different Levels — Resources for Future Watering of New York — 
Girls Boating — Visit to Beautiful Island in the Mahopac — No Horses 
to get to Peekskill — Possible Redolence of Style, etc, etc. • 101 

LETTER FROM ERIE RAILROAD. 
A Thirty-Six Hours' Trip — Night's Sleep in the Cars — Waking up 
first at the End of Two Hundred Miles — Wonders of Locomotion — 
Country Tavern at Sunrise — Promiscuous Bed-room — Dressing in 
in the Entry — Scenery in framed Panels — Drive between Susque- 
liannah and Arched Viaduct — Entrance to the Storucco, and what it is 
like — Rainbow Bridge from Cloud to Cloud — Chasm of Rent-opeu 
Mountain — Cascade off Duty — Drive to Great Bend — Much Seen in 
little Time, etc., etc. ...... Id", 

LETTER FROM COZZENS'S HOTEL. 
Name of the Place whence the Letter is dated — Cozzens's new Hotel — 
Cloven-Rock Road — Waterfall Ladder — Fanny Butler's Bath — 
Weir's Chapel — General and Mrs. Scott — River-God's Hair— Theory 
of June and August — Charade by a Distinguished Hand, . 112 

LETTER FROM GREENWOOD LAKE, ... 120 

LETTER FROM RAMAPO, 124 



CONTENTS. 



-IX 



LETTER FROM WESTCHESTER. 
Visit to Westchester — Speed of Harlem Train — Lots (of Dust) For 
Sale — Monotony of Elegance — Poverty necessary to Landscape — 
Reed's Villa at Throg's Neck — Bronx River Shut in from Publicity 
and Fame — Missing Train and Stage — Surly Toll-Keeper — Politeness 
of " Mine Host''' — Subm-ban Manners of New York — ^High-bred 
Horse and Low-bred Owner — Contagion of Rowdyism, etc., etc. . 129 
LETTER FROM THE HUDSON, .... 134 

LETTER FROM HIGHLAND TERRACE, . . 139 

LETTER FROM HUDSON HIGHLANDS, . . .145 

LETTER FROM THE HIGHLANDS, ... 150 

LETTER FROM THE HIGHLANDS, . . .155 

OLD WHITEY AND GENERAL TAYLOR, . . . 160 

THE LATE PRESIDENT, 164 

EDWARD EVERETT, . . . . . .166 

EMERSON, '169 

CALHOUN AND BENTON, 179 

MRS. FANNY KEMBLE BUTLER, . .• . .182 

DANIEL WEBSTER, UNDER THE SPELL OF JENNY LIND'S 

MUSIC, 189 

SIR HENRY BULWER, 194 

SAMUEL LOVER, 196 

MRS. ANNA BISHOP, . . . • . .200 

FIELDS, " THE AMERICAN MOXON," . . . . 204 

GRACE GREENWOOD, 207 

FENNIMORE COOPER, 210 

5CHR0EDER AND FAY, . . . . . 213 

THE NEW PRIMA-DONNA, STEFFANONI . . .218 

FREDERIKA BREMER, . • . : . ; 223 

LIEUT. WISE, AUTHOR OF " LOS GRINGOS," . . 224 



X CONTENTS. 

FAOE 

MADEMOISELLE ALBONI, . , : . . • 228 

SIR WrLLIAM DON, 2i30 

PARODI'S LUCREZIA BORGIA, , . . . 234 

TRUFFI, . . . ... . .239 

EDGAR POE, 240 

MR. WHIPPLE, 251 

GEORGE P. MORRIS, THE SONG WRITER, . , . 253 

IRVING, . . . i . . . . 256 

JENNY LIND, . . . ; . . . . 257 

FASHION AND INTELLECT IN NEW YORK, . . 263 

WANT OF MARRIED BELLES, 268 

MARRIED LADIES AND THEIR DAUGHTERS, . . 272 

USAGES OF SOCIETY, . . ... 276 

SOCIETY AND MANNERS IN NEW YORK, . • 283 

MANNERS AT WATERING-PLACES, . . .290 

OPERA MANNERS, 297 

WEDDING ETIQUETTES, 304 

SOCIETY NEWS, . . . . . . . 311 

USAGES, ETIQUETTE, ETC., 321 

" " « 325 

SOCIETY, THIS WINTER, . . - . . .329 

SHAWL ARISTOCRACY, 332 

SUGGESTION FOR THE OPERA, .... 336 

COMING OPERA SEASON, 340 

MAY-DAY IN NEW YORK, 344 

ARE OPERAS MORAL, AND ARE PRIMA DONNAS LADIES? 351 
EVENING ACCHSS TO NEW YORK INFORMATION AND 
AMUSEMENT, . . .356 



S ii ]N li) K Y 



LETTER FROM PLYMOUTH. 

Politic Principle of Progress — Daniel Webster at Table — Reason for 
Midsummer Dinner at Plymouth — Description of Guests — Peculiarity of 
" Influential Bostonians" — Their Contempt for Two Extremes — Compli- 
mentary Speech to a certain Charming Person — Octogenarian's Gallantry 
— Mr. "Webster's " Hay-fever" — Picture of the Table — Judge Warren — 
Webster's Speech on the Removal of the Cloth, its Topics and Manner — 
Change of Tone and Feeling in the Parting Address — Sketch of Mr. 
Webster's Countenance as Left by Illness — Speeches by Everett, Winthrop, 
Wayland and Others — Drive to Mr. Webster's House at Marshfield — Its 
Good Example in One Point — Propriety of Rural Retirement to Distin- 
guished Old Age — Look of Plymouth — The Warren Homestead— Spirited 
Letter of John Adams — Letters of Chippeway Chief and of King Philip. 

There is an old cautionary proverb, dear Morris, which exhorts 
an invariable " beginning at the small end of the horn." In 
matters liable to interruption, however, I have oftenest inclined 
to seize first upon the main advantage, leaving disappointment to 
taper off small with the other probabilities. I have made two 
visits to Plymouth — one of several days, in which I enjoyed its 
usual sights and pleasures ; and another of a few hours, in which 



12 MR. WEBSTER. 



I sat down at the Dinner of Pilgrim Embarcation, and saw and 
heard Webster. The letter of Procrustean verge, to which I am 
limited, may fail to use all the material for description which I 
have thus laid up. I will begin with the latter topic, therefore, 
and take my chance of arriving at the previous visit — in failure 
of which you will have the easy consolation that the points it 
would touch upon are treated, more or less satisfactorily, in the 
guide-books. 

I had never chanced to sit at table with Mr. Webster, and I 
was very glad of this opportunity to see him, for once, " with his 
armor off." You will understand, of course, that the annual and 
formal " Pilgrim Dinner" takes place in December and celebrates 
the Landing, and that this was a more informal gathering, 
avowedly to celebrate the Embarcation. The real object, proba- 
bly, was to meet Mr. Webster over the pilgrim theme — ^his 
Congressional duties preventing him from attendance here in the 
winter. Mr. Winthrop's presence was secured by the same 
arrangement, and that of other eminent New Englanders in 
Congress. Easier access to the place in summer, and the chance 
of finding agreeable guests among the distinguished strangers from 
the South in the travelling season, were additional reasons for 
establishing a biennial dinner ; and indeed this celebration seems 
likely to become the more important of the two. 

There were a hundred present, principally " influential 
Bostonians." You know Boston well enough to understand how 
tbis would differ from a company of influential New-Yorkers. 
They were mostly rich men, but they were " smart men" also — 
not a rich fool, nor a mere literary man among them. For cither 
disproportion of brains to the pocket, they have very little respect 
in Boston. A more keen, sagacious set of physiognomies were 



LOOKS OF BOSTONIANS. 13 



never collected about a table ; and it was impossible not to 
recognize, even iu their looks, the cool inevitableness and breadth-y 
calculation which make a Boston enterprise both more liberal 
and certain than one from any other capital in our country. 
Among the invited guests were Mr. Mercer, the wealthy planter 
from Louisiana, Gov. "Woodbury of New Hampshire, President 
Wayiand of Brown University, Edward Everett, and Mr. Mildmay, 
a grandson of Lord Ashburton. I shall not have informed you 
of all the " distinguished presences," however, without mentioning, 
that, at a double window which opened from the dining-room to 
the hall, like a box at the opera, were seated several of the more 
charming descendants of the Pilgrims, and, among them, Mrs. 
Bancroft, (wife of the late Minister to England,) whom the 
younger Quiney, in liis speech, took occasion to compliment very 
gracefully upon her felicitous representation of the ladies of the 
Pilgrim stock at the proudest Court of Europe. Perhaps it 
would interest our female readers to add, that the elder Quiney, 
who was also present, made a speech in which he tartly called the 
principal orators to order, they (Mr. Webster, Mr. Everett and 
Jlr. Winthrop) having glorified the pUgrim fore-fatkers, to the 
exclusion of the pilgrim fore-mothers, without whose assistance, 
he thought, the handings down to us from Plymouth would have 
been very distressingly interrupted. 

Mr. Webster was already in the reception-room on the arrival 
of the special train which brought the guests from Boston, dressed 
with that courtly particularity which becomes him, and he made 
his greetings to his friends, as they came in, like Nature's 
monarch that he is, with an uncontrived and unoppressive dignity 
and simplicity. He was suffering from an annual affliction to 
which iie is subject, iu the shape of what is called in England the 



14 JUDGE WARREN. 



1**^ 



" hay-fever" — a sort of catarrh which comes to some person 
''with each year's infusion of the aroma of new-cut grass into the 
atmosphere. It had evidently prostrated his usual strength and 
spirits, and, when not conversing, he looked scarcely in fit 
condition, even for silent presence at a festivity. 

At the announcement of dinner, Mr, Webster, who was to fill 
" the chair," took the arm of a venerable clergyman of Plymouth 
who has occupied the same pulpit for fifty years, and he seated 
himself at the cross-table, between this gentleman and Dr. 
Wayland. Two long tables extended down the large dining-hall 
of the Hotel, and, at the upper extremity of one, Mr. Everett was 
peninsulated by Mr. Mildmay, and • near the upper end of the 
other sat Mr. Winthrop — these two the principal oratorical 
reliances of the occasion. The witty and life-enjoying Judge 
Warren, (the most agreeable man for so eminent a one that the 
maturing succession to the Webster epoch has to show,) had the 
management of the dinner arrangements, and he was well 
appointed, no less for his ready judgment and courtesy than as 
being President of the " Pilgrim Society," and the best descended 
man in New England — having, in his genealogical tree, sis of the 
best known names among the company of the Mayflower. 

I think I have now drawn in the outline of the scene with 
sufficient distinctness — accessory as every thing seemed, and was, 
to the principal personage in the picture. Mr. Webster arose, 
when the cloth was removed, and, in his primitive and simple 
diction, opened the historic purpose of the celebration. He 
illustrated the event of the embarcation most aptly and impress- 
ively, as a painter illustrates an historical group, by giving the 
acenery around it. He drew the moral sky and atmosphere amid 
which the pilgrims resolved upon their voyage — sketchimr the 



WEBSTER'S SPEECH. 15 



great men of that period, Shakspeare, Milton, Bacon and others, 
with their contemporaneous intellectual momenta, in a strain of 
narrative eloquence, that, quiet as it was, showed the great master. 
He then outlined the progress of the principles of the pilgrims, 
and, by easy transition, passed thence to the extension of the 
republic's power and limits. With a reservation as to his own 
concurrence in the grasp after grasp that we have taken, of terri- 
tory South and West, he expressed, in an outbreak of most 
glowing and overpowering eloquence, his feeling as to liberal 
usage and prompt equalization of rights to all who are once 
covered with our banner. Grlancing at our relative position 
toward the Governments of Europe, he spoke of Hungary and its 
downfall, giving that unhappy country his complete sympathy, 
and mourning over its prostration, with the language, and cer- 
tainly with the look, of a prophet whose spirit was darkened, 
though he still expressed a confidence that the liberty, panted for 
abroad, could not long be kept under. The probable and possible 
future of our own country, and the needful extension of the 
pilgrim principles through its remotest limit of space and time, 
formed the theme of the great orator's impassioned conclusion. 

These were the topics upon which Mr. Webster had come 
prepared to express himself ; but he was once or twice again upon 
his feet, during the evening, and, in taking his leave, he made a 
parting address that was of a different tenor and modulation. 
Unable, from illness, to join in the conviviality of the evening, he 
was, possibly, saddened by a mirth with which his spirits could 
not keep pace ; and, at the same time, surrounded by those who 
had met there from love to him, and whose pride and idol he had 
always been, his kindest and warmest feelings were uppermost, 
and his heart alone was in what he had to say. His afiectionate 



16 PHYSIOGNOMY IN ILLNESS. 



attachment to New England was the leading sentiment, hut, 
through his allusions to his own advancing age and present illness, 
there was recognizahle a wish to say what he might wish to have 
said, should he never again be so surrounded and listened to. It 
was the most beautiful example of manly and restrained pathos, 
it seemed to me, of which language and looks could be capable 
No one who heard it could doubt the existence of a deep well of 
tears under that lofty temple of intellect and power. 

Sickness, like low tide, shows the true depths and shallows of 
the harbor of expression in. a face, and I looked long and earnestly 
at the noble invalid, both as he sat and as he spoke, to see, if 
possible, where his tide-channels lay, and where his ever-buoyant 
greatness had, at least, come nearest to running aground. He 
was really ill — much thinner than I had ever seen him, and so 
debilitated, that, in his least emphatic sentences, the more difficult 
words, failed of complete utterance. Without color, without the 
excitement of high spirits, fallen away in flesh, and, evidently, 
completely unconscious of the observation of those around, he 
was there without the advantages of an ordinary public appear- 
ance — himself, and at the ebb. Sombre as the lines are, 
unlighted with health or impulse — the eyes so cavernous and 
dark, the eyelids so livid, eyebrows so heavy and black, and the 
features so habitually grave — it is a face of strong affections, 
genial, and foreign to all unkindness. There is not a trace in it 
where a pettiness or a peevishness could lodge, and no mea.ns in 
its sallow muscles for the expression of an intellectual littleness 
or perversion. It is all broad — all majestic — all expansive and 
generou's. The darkness in it is the shadow of a Salvator Rosa, 
a heightening of grandeur without injury to the clearness. It is 
easy to imagine, looking at his ponderous forehead alone, how 



WEBSTER'S TEMPERAMENT 17 



Webster might have been ill-balanced with a little difference of 
nature. Less physically powerful, or with less strong sensuous 
affections, he might have been an intellectual man, without a 
statesman's deep-ploughing propulsion, or without a practical 
man's appreciation of the common-place, and constancy of every- 
day purpose — he might have been a great poet, in short, with 
infirmities enough to have made a good biography. With less 
intellect, on the contrary, the powerful animal that he is would 
have developed, perhaps, in antagonism and passionate violence, 
and we might have had a mob-swaying politician, blind with 
headlong impulses and intoxicated with his power. It is in his 
consistent and proportionate endowment, that his greatness lies. 
His physical superiority, and noble disposition, (if his grand face, 
in the subsided linos of illness, tells truly to my reading,) are in 
just balance with his mind, and keep its path broad and its policy 
open. It is the great mind with the small heart which makes a 
dwindling and illiberal old age. Webster — incapable of the fore- 
cast narrowness which makes the scope of chai-acter converge 
when meridian ambition and occupation fill it no longer — will 
walk the broadening path.that has been divergent and liberalizing 
from his childhood to the present hour, till he steps from its 
expanding linos into his giave. 

There were other speeches containing ideas worthy of record — 
one by Mr. Everett in his faultless style, a very graceful and eff.'ct- 
ive one by Mr. Winlhrop, two or three delightfully witty and 
pithy reply-speeches by Judge Warren, good sentiments by 
President Wayland, compliments I » 1 lymouth as the "Mecca of 
America" by Grovernor Woodbury, compliments to the ladies by 
the two Quincys, and several good answers to healths proposed— 
but, of these, though a synopsis would be both instructive and 



18 WEBSTER'S COUNTRY SEAT. 



amusing, I have not time to give it. "We had sat down at three, 
and left the table at eight, and, the cars being in attendance, the 
greater part of the company was in Boston again at ten. 

In my previous visit to Plymouth, I gratified my admiring 
curiosity by a drive to Mr. Webster's home in Marshfield, 
(twelve miles distant,) though, not having the honor of a visiting 
icquaintance with the great statesman, I could only venture upon 
lyhat I was assured was a customary liberty for strangers — a drive 
found the noble elm which turns the carriage road upon his lawn. 
The house, though the picture of English refinement and rural 
comfort, is still a very unpresuming exponent of the fifteen 
liuadred acres which surround, as well as of the distinction which 
tnhabits it ; and this, to one who has noticed the disproportion of 
our Amorifiaa ]>R^aces, in the country, to the quantity of land 
appertaining, is a pleasurable example of good taste. Marshfield 
has been often descnbed, and I could only admire, verifyingly, 
the evidences of thrift aad high culture by which the great farmer 
has made himself a supplementary citizenship and reputation. 
In this home of his own choosiag and embellishing, fitly secluded 
between his wide woodlands and the s,}a, may he freshen and 
rally, after retirement from public life, and enjoy the green and 
vigorous old age of which his majestic fr^me gives him the 
promise ! Such men should not whiten then locks amid the 
disrespect of cities. 

Half an hour, only, before the mail closes, and I scarce know 
what to pick out for mention, among the many delightful circum- 
stances of my first visit to Plymouth. One goes there with 
reverence. It is, as Gov. Woodbury said in his speech, " the 
Mecca" of our country. The old houses have a delightful 
physiognomy o me, and the cruokod and sociable looking streets 



CURIOUS LETTER. %% 



look, as the breaking-off place from the old conntvy should look- 
like old Plymouth, or old Stratford-ou-Avon. Judge Warren 
kindly gave us a look into the mansion of his Mayflower family — 
a delightful old wooden house with low ceilings, which has stood 
near two hundred years, and is filled with relics of the six pilgrim 
families that collected round its hearth in relationship. There 
were the antique chairs, (one, particularly, brought over by Gov. 
Winslow, and with the staples still on its sides by which it was 
fastened to the cabin of the Mayflower,) and the home-like 
cupboards and closets still full of the old china and silver, and the 
quaint furniture of former times in all its variety and profusion. 
The Judge's venerable mother, (the sixth generation from the 
landing,) still inhabits this home of his fathers. 

I was struck with an admirable Letter fiom John Adams to 
James "Warren, which I read, in turning over a mass of Letters 
from "Washington and the patriots of the day, addressed to 
dififerent members of the Judge's family, and, as his brother 
kindly made a coj)y of it, at my request, I enclose it, with one or 
two other good things of which I made copies at the Pilgrim 
Hall. My time is up. Adieu. 

yours, &c. 



[The following are the enclosures referred to : — "] 

Copy of a Letter from John Adams to James Warren, written the morning after 
the throwing overboard of the tea in Boston Harbor. 

BosTO^', Dec'r 17, 1773. 

D'r Sie : — The Dye is cast. The People have passed the River and cult 

away the Bridge : last Night Three Cargoes of Tea, were emptied into the 



20 THE WARREN LETTKR. 



Harbour. This is the grandest Event wliich has ever yet happened since the 
controversy with Britain <jpened ! 

The Sublimity of it charms me ! 

For my own Part, I cannot express my own Senti tienls of it. better than 
in the words of Coll. Doane to me, last Evening. Balch should repeat them. 
The worst that can happen, I think, says he, in consequence of it, will be 
that the Province must pay for it. Now, I think the Proviixc may pay for 
it, if it is burn'd as easily as if it is drank — and I think it is a matter of 
indifference whether it is drank or drowned. The Province must pay for it 
in either case — But there is this Difference, I believe — it will take them 
10 years to get the Province to pay for it — if so we shall save 10 years 
interest of the money — whereas if it is drank it mu.-t be paid for immediately, 
thus He. — However He agreed with me that the Province would never pay 
for it — and also in this that the final Ruin of our Con.?titution of Governmeot, 
and of all American Liberties would be the certain Consequence of suffering 
it to be landed. 

Governor Hutchinson and his Family and Friends will never have done 
with their good services to Great Britain and the Colonies ! But for him 
this Tea might have been saved to the East India Company. Whereas this 
Loss if the rest of the Colonies should follow our Example, will in the 
opinion of many Persons bankrupt the Company. However, I dare say, 
that the Governors, and Consignees, and Custom House Officers in the other 
Colonies will have more Wisdom than ours have had and take effectual Care 
that their Tea shall be sent back to England untouched— if not it will as 
surely be destroyed there as it has been here. 

Threats, Phantoms, Bugbears by the million, will be invented and propa- 
gated among the People upon this occasion — Individuals will be threatened 
with Suits and Prosecutions — Armies and Navies will be talked of— military 
Executions — Charters annulled — Treason — Tryals in England and all that — 
But — ^these Terrors are all but Imaginations — Yet if they should become 
Realities they had better be suffered than the great Principle of Parliament- 
ary Taxation given up. 

The Town of Boston was never more still and calm of a Saturday night 
than^t was last Night— all Things were conducted with great order, 



SAMOSET. 21 

Decency, and perfect submission to Government. No doubt we all thought the 
administration in better hands than it had been. 

Please to make Mrs. Adams's most respectful Compliments to Mrs, 
Warren, and mine. I am your Friend, JOHN ADAMS. 

Coll. Waeeen. 



[The principal Hotel at Plymouth is named the Samoset 
House, after the Indian chief who gave a frank v/elcome to the 
Pilgrims. Very recently a Chippeway chief with some of his 
tribe, visted Plymouth in the course of a tour, exhibiting the 
war-dance, etc. While there, he presented to the Pilgrim Hall 
his portrait in war costume, painted by his son,. and dictated the 
following admirable lettei-, which, I think, the friendly Samoset 
would like to rise from the dead and read :] 

Brothkrs, We give our sincere thanks to the Great Spirit in allowing us 
to see you this day. Many winters and summers have gone by, since our 
fathers first sav/ each other in this place. 

We have seen the rock, once our own, the rock that was the foundation 
for the first step your fathers made when they landed here, from the other 
side of the great waters. 

Brothers, It is said that our fathers were in great fear of one another, 
when they first saw each other; but now we, their children, see one 
another with friendship, love and kindness. 

Brothers, If our fathers have been enemies to each other, and have had 
many wars between them, we sincerely hope that w'e their children will 
never be so, but that we may live in peace with one another in this world, 
and forever in tne otbei'. 

Brothers, If we should say that your coming to America has been a 
great evil to us, it Vi-ould be no other than speakiiig again; t the orders of the 
Great Spirit. The wisdom of His timughts we caiinot see with eye oi' our 



22 PITHr LETTER. 



t:^; 



minds. He alone was the cause of America being discovered by white men ; 
seeing that there would have been no room for you all on the small island 
called England. He is kind to all his children. Your coming to our coun- 
try is a general blessing to you. and we believe it is for our good too. 

Bk OTHERS, We have been travelling four years among the whites in 
Europe, and in this country, and we have been treated very kindly indeed. 

Brothers, May you and we always enjoy bright and happy da3's. 

Brothers, I present this picture to the Pilgrim Society, a representation 
of our dress before you this evening. 

Presented by Maun gun das es, drawn by his son Wanbudick, Chippeways 

[There is another specimen of the native royal literature of our 
country, of which the original hangs up in the Pilgrim Hall, and 
it is pithy enough to be re-copied in connection with the above :] 

King Phiup to Governor Prince. 

To the much honored Governor Thomas Prince, dwelling at Plymouth. 

Honored Sir : King Philip desires to let you understand that he could 

not come to the Court, for torn his interpreter has a pain in his back that he 

could not travel so far, and Philip's sister is very sick. Philip would entreat 

that favor of you, and any of the Magistrates, if oney English or ingeins 

■speak about aney land, he prays you to give them no answer at all. The 

last summer he maid that promise with you, that he would sell no land in 

seven years time, for that he would have no English trouble him before that 

time, he has not forgot that you promise hirn. he will come as soon as 

possible he can to spealc with you, and so I rest your verey loving friend. 

Philip, dwelling at Mount Hope neck. (1663.) 

[I must vary these prose extracts with one specimen of Ameri- 
can poetry " two hundred years ago." Miles Standish was the 
gallant Bayard, the fearless soldier of the Mayflower company, 
and a piece of his daughter's embroidery hangs up in the Pilgrim 
Hall, at the bottom of which her naeJlo has stitched the fullow- 
inir lines : ] 



riLGlllM POETRY. 23 



^ Lorra Standish is my name 
Lord guide my hart that I may doe thy will ; 
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill, 
As may conduce to virtue void of shame 
And I will give the glory to thy name." 



LETTER 'FROM I^EW BEDFORD.. 

Effect of Steamer Starting from the Wharf — Piece of a Town afloat — The 
Phenixed Boat — Cost of Empire State — Vocation of Captain — Spectacle 
of Supper in a Cabin Two Hundred and Fifty Feet Long — Effect on 
Manners — Sumptuous Entertainment for Fifty Cents — Excuse for Statistics 
— New Bedford and its Wealth — Climate and Industry — Geograi)hic 
Peculiarities — " Placer" for Beauty — The Acushnet — Old Fashioned 
Prejudices and Modern Luxury — Statesmanlike Remedy for Decline of 
Local Trade and Lidustr}- — Proposed Visit to the Raised Leg of Nevr 
England, etc., etc. 

My Dear Morris : — If you have any recollection of what the 
boys call " ruiming kitthdys'''' — prying off and jumping upon cakes 
of ice and navigating them, -when the frozen river is breaking up 
into floating islands, in the Spring — ^you can understand what I 
mean when I say that one of these vast steamboats, leaving the 
wharf, seems to me like a M'hole street cake-ing off into the river. 
I walked the length of the " Empire State," yesterday, before 
starting, and, when she glided away from the pier alongside of 
the T'attery, it struck me like the lower end of the town goin'»- 
adrift — like " Ward No. 1" getting under weigh. And, really, 



A STEAMBOAT CAPTAIN. 



this gx at flotilla comprises almost as much of a town as one 
R'^ants — quite as much, at least, as one wishes to take into the 
eountry in August — drawing-rooms, sleeping-rooms, and kitchens, 
stables and baggage-rooms, barber's shop and refectory, lounging 
places and promenades, ladies to wait upon and servants to wait 
on us, goods and merchandise of every description, supper, soci- 
ety and something to see. If we could pack up a portion of the 
city, as we do a portion of our wardrobe, aod take it travelling 
with us as " baggage," we should hardly want more. 

The " Empire State" is the boat that pkenixed, last year — was 
burnt to the water's edge, that is to say, and rebuilt — and, superb 
as was the former boat, this is an improvement on her. The 
tremulous jar which we used to feel at either end of the old boat, 
is remedied by extension of the bracing portions of this, and she 
goes through the water now, at eighteen miles an hour, as steadily 
as a swan. The cost of one of these floating palaces may help 
you to an idea of their magnitude and magnificence — one hundred 
and eighty thousand dollars ! The Fall Eiver Company have 
another such boat, a little larger than this, and a smaller one ; 
and their outlay, altogether, I was told — for craft, warehouses, 
wharves, etc., — amounts to half a million ! This, as the invest- 
ment of capital in only one of several lines of conveyance in the 
same direction, shows the energy of Yankee enterprise very for- 
cibly. The burnt upper works of the boat that was destroyed, I 
should mention, were replaced at a cost of one hundred and 
twenty thousand dollars. 

The captain of one of these boats exercises an office of very re- 
sponsible control. The daily municipality, (subject to his may- 
oralty from wharf to wharf,) often comprises upwards of five hun- 
dred souls, including fifty or so of permanent subordinates ; and 
2 



23 STEAMBOAT SUPPER. 



the demands on his tact, judgment, personal character and author- 
ity, besides the life and property entrusted to his skil],are enough 
to entitle his office (and all offices should be graded by their powei 
and responsibility) to the consideration and dignity of a prefect. 
We should be better off, if large cities could be as well disciplined 
and governed as are these floating towns of temporary popula- 
tion. The " Empire State" is a beautiful model of system, ele- 
gance and comfort. The quiet decision, and good-humored mas- 
tership and authority of Comstock, her captain, who is a fine spe- 
cimen of his class, form a controlling power that works like his 
boat's rudder. It seems to affect even the manners at the sup- 
per-table, for, chance-met and promiscuous as is the company, 
never twice the same, it is as orderly a show, in its general effect, 
as any entertainment in the world. This sort of thing, mind you, - 
is found in no other country, and when first seen, it is very im- 
pressive to a stranger. The room in which it is served, t)ie lower 
cabin, is two hundred and fifty feet long, richly and continuously 
draped on both sides with curtains of costly material and brilliant 
colors; and the two immensely long tables are furnished in a 
style of most sumptuous luxury. Vases of flowers, elegant china, 
bouquets at every third or fourth plate, and a profusion of chan- 
deliers and candles, are the ornamental portion. The well-drilled 
negro waiters in their uniform white jackets are apparently select- 
ed for their good looks as well as for their capability. The sup- 
per consists of game, fish, oysters, steaks of all kinds, every vari- 
ety of bread and sweetmeats, and tea and coffee, with an after- 
course of ices and jellies — all well cooked and all served as quietly 
and expeditiously as it could be done in a palace — and, that this 
could be afforded at fifty cents a head, would astonish a European. 
Now, every-day matter as this is it is a brilliant spectacle of gre- 



A RICH TOWN. 27 



garious economy, worth travelling some distance to see, and as 
creditable to our country, as it is peculiarly American. Let us 
recognize good things as they go along, familiar though they be ! 

New Bedford, (the place of my present writing,), is two hun- 
dred and twenty-five miles from New York — twenty-five miles by 
railroad from Fall River, to which these steamers ply. One gets 
here by a capital supper, a night's sleep on the water, and an 
hour's ride in the morning — cost (for feed and freight) four dol- 
lars ten cents. If I am a little dry, with my statistics, by the 
way, you will remember that it is easy to skip a fact, if you knew 
it before — vexatious to miss one if you want and do not find it. 
How ignorant are you, on the whole, my dear General .? It is 
not always safe, I have found, to presume on people's knowing 
everything, and, in the remainder of this letter, particularly, I 
shall address you as if you knew nothing. 

What do you think of a town, in which, if the property taxed 
in it were equally divided, every man, woman and child, in its 
population, would have over one thousand dollars .? This makes 
a rich town, (they would say in Ireland,) and, in fact, New Bed- 
ford is as rich, for its population, as any town in this country. 
The taxed property this year is $17,237,400, and the whole, num- 
ber of inhabitants is but about sixteen thousand. The use of 
capital by which the place is best known, is its whaling business 
— a hundred ships, averaging each thirty thousand dollars in 
value, belonging to this port alone. Twenty or thirty years ago, 
this was the engrossing interest of the town, and the arrival of a 
ship from sea drew everybody to the wharves ; but now they come 
and go, unnoticed except by owners and the relatives of the crew. 
The sexagenarians tell how the railroad and the theatre have dis- 
placed the old excitements, and, with this history of change comes 



28 CLIMATE OF NEW BEDFORD. 



a long chapter upon novelties in dress and religion, nearly the 
entire population having once been Quakers. Luxurious as the 
town is, now, however, and few and far between as are the lead- 
colored bonnets and drab cut-away coats, there is a strong tinc- 
ture of Quaker precision and simplicity in the manners of the 
wealthier class in New Bedford, and, au)ong the nautical class, it 
miscs up very curiously with the tarpaulin carelessness and ease. 
The railroad, which has brought Boston within two hours distance, 
is fast cosmopoliziog away the local peculiarities, and though at 
present, I think, I could detect the New Bedford relish, in almost 
any constant inhabitant whom I might meet elsewhere, they wil'l 
soon be undistinguishable, probably, from other New Englanders. 
As to the geography of the place, you may, if you please, ima- 
gine Massachusetts sitting down with her feet in the waters of 
the Acushnet, where that river opens upon Buzzard's Bay, and 
looking off towards the Gulf of Mexico — New Bedford occupying, 
meantime, the slope of her instep. The southern shore of the 
Granite State, is fringed with islands which break the ocean 
horizon ; but the warm and moist air of the gulf conies un- 
checked hither, with every continuous south wind, affecting very 
much, (and very delightfully, to my sense), the climate of the 
place. The eighty miles' stretch of land which extends back, be- 
tween it and Massachusetts Bay, uses up, at the same time, tho 
bilious acid of the Boston east winds ; and, but for its greater 
clearness, the weather, here, would resemble, in most of its tem- 
perate seasons and phases, that of the south of England. The 
thermometer, on an average, is five degrees higher than in Bos- 
ton, though the breezy exposure to the sea makes the extreme 
heat of summer more endurable hero than there. A southern 



OPPOSITION TO SIDEWALKS. gg 



propinquity to the ocean is very favorable to complexion, and 
this is a " _pZrtcer" for bright lips and rosy cheeks accordingly. 

The Acusbnet is more an arm of the sea than a river proper^ 
and, as the harbor is in the hollow of this arm, the old maritime 
town takes a very close hug from it — sonie of the best of the old 
houses being but a biscuit pitch from the vessels at the wharves. 
On the table-summit of the precipitous hill which rises immedi- 
ately behind the town, stands one of the finest arrays of dwelling- 
houses in this country — an extensive neighborhood of costly 
villas, with each its ample surrounding of grounds and garden — 
and this part of New Bedford reminds one of the Isle of Wight or 
English Clifton. One of the well-remembered events of the 
town's history — a matter of twenty or thirty years ago — is the op- 
position made to the introduction of sidewalks ; the influential and 
wealthy of that period insisting that they had walked comfortably 
enough over the round stones ; yet, in the beautiful houses where 
many of these easily suited persons are now growing old, is to be 
found luxury, in its most refined shapes and costliest superfluities 
— -so readily, in this mobile country of ours,"do classes and cus- 
toms undergo changes the most improbable. 

An idea has been liberally and successfully acted upon at New 
Bedford, which is somewhat analogous to Nature's provision for 
the supply of the Croton — (three or four lakes in reserve in case 
the principal one should fail) — and, 35 it embodies a useful ex- 
ample, both of political economy and of practical philanthropy, I 
will ballast my sketchy letter with its mention. Whaling, as 
every one knows, has been the principal commerce and industry 
of the town since its first settlement. The large fortunes pos- 
sessed here have been mostly made in this trade, and the majority 
of the inhabitants, even now, are mostly dependent on it, in one 



30 WAMSUTTA FACTORY. 



shape or another. From various causes, the profits of this long 
lucrative resource have lessened within the last few years, or at 
least the shipping enterprise has not increased with the popula- 
tion and its wants. A farther falling off, of this vital supply of 
prosperity, was foreseen to be possible, and recognized at once as 
a calamity which the wealthy might not feel, who could easily 
employ their capital elsewhere, but which would fall very heavily 
on the families of the maritime class. It was evident that some 
new industry must be grafted on the habits of the place, and that 
it must, if possible, be one of which the families of sailors and 
mechanics could avail themselves, independent of the precarious 
yield from " following the sea." The decline of many a town 
shows that the industry of communities is not, in itself, a very 
Protean or self-restoring principle, and, unless cared for and re- 
directed by far-sighted and higher intelligence, will lose courage 
with the exhaustion of a particular vein. Enterprise, for indi- 
vidual gain alone, is slow to provide new branches of trade. It 
must be done from public spirit, and by a combination of the 
sagacity to contrive and the influence to induce and control capi- 
tal. This is the moral history of the establishment of the Wam- 
8UTTA Steam Cotton Factory, which has lately been put into 
operation at New Bedford, with a capital of three hundred thou- 
Band dollars, and in which a sailor's daughter, for example, (who 
else might be painfully dependent, or compelled to leave home 
and go out to service,) may earn four dollars a week by inde- 
pendent and undegrading labor. This is the average of the pre- 
sent earnings of two hundred operatives in this new factory ; and, 
as the investment is already proved to be a good one, other fac- 
tories will doubtless be built, and the industry of New Bedford, 
turned into a new and more reliable and acceptable channel, will 



HON. JOSEPH GRINNELL. 31 



bo independent of the precarious resources of wLaling. Towns 
are well furnished that have controlling minds among their inhabi 
tants, capable of this sort of enlarged foresight and remedy, 
to provide new conduits against their natural or accidental 
depletion. New Bedford is indebted for this to its able 
Representative in Congress, Hon. Joseph Grinnell. 

Having never visited the renowned country, Cape Cod, I am 
making my will and otherwise preparing for an exploring expedi- 
tion to that garden of 'cuteness. If you look at it upon the map, 
you will see that it resembles the lifted leg of New England, in 
the act of giving the enemy a kick. Intending to venture out as 
far as Provincetown, which is the point of the belligerent toe, 1 
shall probably date my next letter from that extremity — mean- 
time remaining, dear General, 

Yours, &o. 



LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 

System and Monotony — Booted Leg of Massachusetts — First Stof below 
the Garter — Yarmouth and its Vertebral Street — Sentiment on Cape Cod" 
— Stage-driver's Plenipotentiary Vocation — Delicate Messages delivered 
in Public — More Taste for Business than Rural Seclusion — Sameness and 
Plainness of Building — Republican Equality — 'Cute Lad — Yanno the 
Handsome Chief — Cape Cod Poetess — Comparative Growth of Trees and 
Captains — Boxed Gardens — Misfortune of too Good Company — Centena- 
rian Servant known as •' The Old Gentleman" — Man One Hundred and 
Nine Years Old, who had never been out of Temper, etc., etc. 

You must leave the railroad to know anything' of the character 
of New England. A wooden Station-house, with " Grentlemen's 
Room," '■ Ladies' Saloon," a clock, and a counter for pies and 
coffee, is the picture repeated with as little variety as a string of 
mile-posts, from one end of a route to the other. System and 
punctuality, such valuable and invariable characteristics as they 
are, of rail-rbading in Yankee-land, are accompanied, as invaria- 
bly, by stiff gravity and monotony — the excitement of curiosity, 
vhich a stranger awakens as he goes, being the only gleam of 



THE RAISED LEG. 



33 



animation upon the meeting-house physiognomy of the cars. 
With my getting round the head of Buzzard's Bay, therefore, 
my dear General — (thi'ee hours of rail-roading from New Bedford 
to Sandwich) — you would be no more interested than in a history 
of a man's travels while changing his seat from the broad-aisle to 
the side-aisle to see more of the congregation. 

On the raised leg of New England, (which Cape Cod, or 
Barnstable county, looks to be, on the map,) the proposed ship 
canal from Buzzard's Bay to Massachusetts Bay, would be the 
well-placed garter. Mr. Everett, by-the-way, very felicitously 
called this peninsular Cape the outstretched arm which Providence 
held forth, to enclose, with protecting welcome, the Pilgrims of 
the Mayflower ; but I insist, notwithstanding, that it resembles 
more a raised leg, clad with the spurred hoot of a cavalier — 
Falmouth, at the sjDacious opening of its top, the long island off 
Chatham forming the long rowel of its spur, and the Elizabeth 
cluster, from Naushon to Kutiyhunk, furnishing its appropriate 
edging of lace. 

The railroad, extending only to Sandwich, barely crosses the 
line of this proposed garter canal. My companion and guide 
intended to lodge ten miles further down, at Yarmouth. We 
found an old-fashioned stage, waiting for passengers " bound 
down," and, rejoicing in it as a long missed and pleasant friend, 
T mounted to the top for one of the pleasantest summer-evening 
rides that I remember. With a full moon rising before us, a 
delicious southern breeze laden with the breath of sweet-briar and 
new hay, and a consequent mood rather sentimental than other- 
wise, I commenced acquaintance with Cape Cod — a country, the 
mention of which does not (usually, at least,) call up associations 

of so tender a complexion. 

2* 



34 DRIVER'S VOCATION. 



We were fourteen passengers, but the carrying of us and our 
baggage seemed to be a secondary part of the driver's vocation. 
He was apparently the agent, parcel-carrier, commission-broker, 
apologist, and bearer of special intelligence for the whole 
population. His hat was the " way-mail," and, with his whip 
and the reins for four horses in his hands, he uncovered, and 
transacted business constantly and expeditiously. The presence 
of fourteen detained listeners was no barrier to the delivery of 
confidential messages. We pulled up before one of the most 
respectable-looking houses on the road, and a gentleman came 
out, evidently prepared to receive something he had expected. 

" Mr. B ," said the driver," " told me to tell ycr he 

could'nt send yer that money to-day." 

" Why not .'" said the expectant, clearly disappointed. 

" 'Cause he had to go to Court." 

" Wal!" said the gentleman, putting his hands in his pockets 
and giving the driver a sly look as he turned on his heel, " you 
hain't pocketed it yourself, have yer .^" 

" Tluck, tluck !" and along we went again, pulling up, a mile 
further on, to receive a parcel from a man in an apron. 

" Seventy-five cents to be paid on that!" said the mechanic, 
holding out his hand to receive from the driver what his customer 
was to pay on delivery — an advance, or loan on security, of 
course, which the driver handed over without objection. 

Presently we were stopped by a man with a letter in his hand. 
The driver was a minute or two decyphering the address, and, 
after some delay, to which none of the fourteen passengers made 
any objection, he discovered that it was directed to Boston, and 
he was to drop it into the office at Yarmouth. 

" Anything to pay on't .?" asked the man. 



YARMOUTH OXE STREET. 35 



" No . Tluck, tluck !" and away we went again. 

These, and slighter errands, made a diflferenee of perhaps half 
an hour in our time of arrival — a tax upon transient passengers 
for the benefit of regular customers on the road, which is, no 
doubt, politic enough in the stage proprietor, but which, like 
most other arrangements of the Cape, was indicative of the 
primitive simplicity of old time, 

Barnstable and Yarmouth — once several miles apart — have 
built up to each other, and a stranger would have no idea where 
the two towns divide. This is the result of a peculiar fashion 
which prevails all over the Cape, of building nowhere but on the 
stage-road, the houses and gardens of these populous villages 
being all strung, thus, upon one string. I inquired the length of 
the street^ or extension of contiguous houses, through which we 
had come to Yarmouth, and was told it was five miles. So 
exclusively is it " the rage" to live on this main street, that the 
land upon it is worth, on an average, three or four dollars a foot, 
while, a hundred rods back, it could be had for comparatively 
nothing. I may mention here, that, on our way to Hyannis the 
next morning, we came to a most lovely fresh water lake, set in a 
bowl of wooded fiills, and offering the finest possible situations for 
elegant rural residence. Though only a mile or so from the 
village street, this beautiful neighborbood was as unfenced and 
wild as land on tu3 prairies ; and of no value for building lots, as 
the gentleman told me who was our kind conductor. In any 
other vicinity to a town, in the civilized world, it seems to me, 
such easy advantages for taste and charming surroundings would 
have been eagerly competed for, and seized upon and improved 
by the first winner of a competency. 

In the style of buildiiip:, along through Yarmouth and 



36 THE HANDSOME CHIEF. 

Barnstable, there is a most republican equality. Usually, in 
places of the same size, the inhabitants, as they grow wealthy, 
make a corresponding show in their dwelling-houses. Here, there 
is scarce one which has any pretension, or could fairly be accused 
of any superiority which might awaken envy. They are mostly 
wooden farm-houses, of one unvarying inelegance of model, and 
such as could be built, I was told, for an average cost of some- 
where within one thousand dollars. Yet many of the residents, 
in these simple structures, are very wealthy men. The equality, 
of which this is a type, extends to everything. We stopped, for 
example, (in our ride froin Yarmouth,) at the village of Hyannis, 
and, leaving our two vehicles at the store, which served as a 
stopping-place, went to a neighboring house to call on some old 
acquaintances of my fellow-traveller. As we sat in the drawing- 
room, conversing with the four or five ladies of the family, a lad 
of fifteen, who had been sent with us by the keeper of the livery- 
stable to bring back his horse, walked in and took a chair, with 
the self-possession of the most honored guest. He was a boy, by- 
the-way, to whom I took a fancy — " a 'cute lad" worthy of Cape 
Cod — and I was indebted to him, as we rode along, for valuable 
information. Among other things, he pointed out to me the 
Indian burial-ground, where Y-anno, (an Indian, chief whose 
remarkable personal beauty is still remembered, and after whom 
the village of Hyannis is named,) has his grave. A man was 
ploughing in the field of which it made a part. " Do you see that 
man .?" said the boy ; " well, he's got a daughter that wrote him 
a piece of poetry about givin' on her that lot that the Indians are 
buried in." He then showed me the house in which the poetess 
lived — all with the air, however, of one doubtful whether or no 
ho had apprised me of a matter of any consequence Like sorat 



STYLE OF HOUSES. 37 



older people, he evidently had not made up his mind whether the 
writing of poetry was indicative of a fool .or a prophet. As this 
was the only one of my trade whom I heard of as indigenous to 
the Cape, I was sorry, afterwards, that I had not called to pay 
the proper respects of professional " fraternization." 

We had left the ordinary stage route at Yarmouth, and kept 
along the south shore of the Cape for ten or fifteen miles — 
intending to take the stage again at Harwich. The small village 
of Hyannis, which is five miles south of the usual line of travel, 
is upon a bank of sand, which affords only a scanty hold to- 
vegetation, and it looks like a settlement of Socialists, or like the 
ideal of Pitcairn's island — ^so all alike are its houses, and so tidy, 
thi-ifty, homely, and after one pattern, are all the surroundings 
of each. There seems to be but one idea of the structure of a 
dwelling — to have nothing superfluous and to painf the remainder 
white. The garden fences are made of close boards, to keep out 
the sand in windy weather, and every house stands in a white box, 
accordingly. These are, almost without exception, the residences 
of the families of seafaring men, and we were told that we should 
be safe in calling any man " Captain" whom we might meet in 
Hyannis. They raise better Captains than trees, here. The 
stunted pine, with its bald roots, looks scrofulous and pinched, 
and the only shade-tree which seems to thrive is the silver-leaved 
poplar, of which we saw, here and there one, in the boxed up 
gardens. As in Yarmouth, the building-lots are valuable on the 
street, — the few feet, for a little cottage and flower garden, 
costing four or five hundred dollars, whila the average cost of the 
houses in th;^ town, (occupied many of them, by comparatively 
wealthy inpn) is but six or sevon hundred. 

IJnfortQn-.t.'ly for the interest of my letter, I made this 



38 ARISTOCRACY REVERSED. 



excursion in company with a very distinguished man ; and, as the 
inhabitants turned out, every where, to show him attention and 
accompany him from town to town, I had little or no opportunity 
of seeing what some traveller calls " the. unconscious natives." 
Wherever we chanced to be, at about the dinner hour, we were 
kept to dine — losing time for me, as our entertainers were of a 
class that is the same all over the world, and, delightful as was 
their hospitality, it furnished, of course, neither material nor 
liberty of description. Among the advantages of the attention 
to my friend, of which I thus, business-wise, complain, however, 
I must mention an introduction to a centenarian, whom I noticed 
that every one called " the old gentleman," though he enjoys a 
celebrity as having been servant to the father of James Otis the 
patriot. It was a curious confusion of dates, to hear a patriot, 
who has gone down to history, spoken of, by a living person, as 
" young Jem" — the name by which the old man invariably 
designates James Otis. The " old gentleman" has a noble 
physiognomy, and is the wreck of a powerful frame. He was 
courteous and aristocratic enough, in his expression and bearing, 
to have been an old Duke. 

I was sorry to hear, after we left Yarmouth, that I had missed 
seeing a centenarian of that place, who is certainly a curiosity 
He is now a hundred and nine years of age, and, in his whole life, 
was never known to he out of temper. He married young, and his 
wife died about twenty years ago, having been, all her life, a 
singularly irritalle woman ! He did good service in the war of 
the Revolution, and has been pressed, at various times, to apply 
for the pension to which he is entitled. He refused always, on 
the ground that, as he served the time he agreed to, and received 
the pay they agreed to give him, the Government owes bim 



FUN IN THE ONE HUNDREDTH YEAR. 39 



nothing. His children, living in the town, are well off, and wish 
him to end his dajs with them ; but he prefers his lodging in the 
Poor Plouse, declaring that he " can't bear to think of being a 
troxxble to any body," and fairly earning his board by " doing 
chores" about the grounds and kitchen. He is still of a most 
playful turn of mind. A fellow pensioner of the Poor House, 
who is eighty years old, was sitting with him, but a few days 
since, upon a wooden bench in the yard — the skirts of his broad- 
skirted coat lying loose upon the seat, and the large empty pockets 
temptingly open. The old humorist quietly glided behind, during 
their talk, and, from a heap of loose stones near by, filled the 
open pockets, without disturbing the owner. He then patted him 
kindly on the shoulder, and, expressing some fear that he might 
take cold, asked him to walk into the house. At the vain efforts 
of his pinned down friend, to rise with the weight in his coat-tails, 
he laughed as heartily as a boy of sixteen. He is said to have p 
fine physiognomy, and to have been an active man and a goo<-. 
citizen, without displaying any particular talent. 

I must defer, to another letter, the remaining and more 
interesting portion of my trip down the Cape. 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER FROM. CAPE COD. 

Down the Ankle of Cape Cod to Heel and Instep — Amputated Limb of a 
Town — Look of Thrift — Contentment on Barren Sand — Primitive part of 
the Cape, unreached by Steam and Rails — Ladies' Polkas — Statistics of 
Mackerel Fishery — Three Prominent Features of the Cape, Grave-Yards, 
School-Houses and One other — Praiseworthy Simplicity of Public Taste 
—Partial Defence of " Dandies"— The " Blue-Fish"— Class of Beauty on 
the Cape — Comparative Vegetation and Humanity, etc., etc. 

At the close of my last letter, I believe, I was bound to take 
tea on the heel of Cape Cod, and, thence, to cross over and sleep 
on the instep. We stopped upon the way — between the two veins 
of Bass River and Herring River — to visit one of the " packing 
wharves," to which the mackerel fishermen bring in their cargoes 
for inspection and barrelling. These long projections of frame- 
work into the sea, of which there are several along the Southern 
beach of the Cape, have a strangely amputated look— -a busy 
wharf having usually a busy city attached to it, and such a limb 
of a town on a desolate shore doing as much violerce to association 
as to see an arm there without the remainder of the man. 

In the mackerel fishery is engaged a very lai-ge proportion of 
the inhabitants of Cape Cod, and this, and other navigation are 



STATISTICS OF FISHING. 4] 



enricbing that part of the country, at present, at an almost 
Califoiiiian rate — at least, if the usual indications of renewed 
prosperity are at all to be trusted. The little fleets of fishing 
vessels which are constantly visible in the distance, following the 
" schools" of their prey, are beautiful objects, looking like flocks 
of snow-white birds painted upon the blue tablet of the sea. 
They are, each, a small republic, composed of ten or twelve men, 
with proportionate shares in the enterprise, and their voyages 
last from two to six weeks The fish are assorted, at the pa^Mng 
wharves, into three qualities, insj^ected and sent to mai:ke>t. 
At the head of each of these landing-places is a " store'^ for 
gundiies, where the fishermen may find the few goofls a^idi 
groceries that he requires, and, all around — warehouses, p/r'imidii 
of new barrels, workmen and all — had a look (it struc? vie) of 
most especial thrift and contentment. 

And I must put in here, my dear song-writer, a p? fa;^r? ph 
which you poetical and un-practical people may skip 't" you iike — 
statistics of mackerel fishery which I took some p*,m& to inquire 
out, and by which persons of other vocations ia't make that 
comparison of outlay and profit, so useful to a pr-' pe/ appreciation 
of human allotment. 

The smal^vessels in which fishing is most successfully pursued 
are from 50 to 100 tons burthen, and cost from $2000 to $4000. 
The expenses and fittings-out are divided into two classes of 
articles, which are technically. called the " Great Generals" and 
the " Small Generals" — the former cons/sting of salt, barrels, 
_ expense of packing, and Skipper's commission on the proceeds ; 
the latter consisting of provisions for the nrew and fishing-tackle. 
The owners furnish ve^5sel, sails, rigging, etc., and draw 25 to 
30 per cent, of the proceeds, after th<j ''^reat Generals" are 



42 MACKEREL FISHERY, 

deducted. The crew receive the remainder, and divide among 
themselves, according to the quantity of fish caught by each. I 
forgot, by-the-way, to mention the Skipper's premium for 
commanding the vessel, which is 2k per cent, on the proceeds. 
And another item : — whoever furnishes the " Great Generals" 
receives one-eighth of the gross proceeds, and it is sometimes 
done by the owner of the vessel, sometimes jointly by the crew. 

The average quantity of mackerel taken by single vessels in 
a season, is 600 barrels, and they usually bring ^6 per barrel. 
Let us put it into a shapely business statement : — 

Gross proceeds, $3600,00 

Deduct '' Great Generals :" — 

600 bushels of salt at 30 cents, . . . $180 
600 empty barrels and re-packing, . . . 600 
Skipper's commission, 90 . . $870,00 

■' $2730,00 

Owner of vessel's share, 25 per cent., 682,50 



$2047,50 



Crew of twelve men, average to each, .... 170,62 

Less share of •' Small Generals," .... 50,00 



About $20 pier month, $120,62 

Sometimes (I must add), the crews are part owners of the 
vessels, and, according to their standard of wealth, when a man 
has acquired $4000, he has an independent fortune — the cost of 
living, for a fisherman's family on the Cape, not necessarily 
exceeding $200 per annum. 

There is bi*rer complaint of the Government, among those 



COD FISHERY. 43 



interested in the mackerel fishery — (a very formidable body of 
voters) — so palpably injured is this large and hardy class by the 
operation of the ad valorem duty on foreign mackerel. In the 
British provinces, where this fish is taken by a seine, instead of 
by hook and line as in this country, they can afibrd to put the 
value as low as two to three dollars per barrel, making the duty 
from forty to sixty cents. The American fisherman furnishes a 
better article, but to enable him to compete at all with his foreign 
competitor, there should be a specific duty of so much per barrel. 

The cod fishery, by which the tough sons of the Cape are best 
known, is so incomparable a school for such sailors as the country 
relies on in time of danger, that the Grovernment gives a bounty 
to those who engage in it. This premium on an industry which 
is an education in skill and hardihood — the exposure to fogs, ice 
and difficult navigation being greater than in any other pursuit — 
amounts to $300 given to the owners and crew of each vessel, 
three-eighths to the owners and five-eighths to the crew. 

The barren sand and starved vegetation of this whole line of 
coast naturally suggested a query as to the contentment of resi- 
dence here, but, in answer to various inquiries, I found that a 
Cape man's proverbial ambition is to have a comfortable home 
where he was born; that the Cape girls have no wish to live any- 
where else ; and that increased means only confirm them in the 
fulfilment of these indigenous preferences. Just now, certainly, 
there are more new houses going up on the Cape roads than in 
any section of the country which I have travelled through, and, 
as to poverty, it seems unknown, from the Cape's toe to its knee- 
jan. In Provincetown, where the population is between two 
and three thousand, there are but two paupers and these are dis- 
abled and decrepid fishermen. If green and fertile Ireland, 



44 FASHION ON THE CAPE. 



(which is the first land eastward,) could only close up to the 
Gape, what a picture of double contrast would be presented, and 
what a neat Grordian knot it would offer — wealthy and intelligent 
bleakness, and ignorance and poverty-stricken fertility — for poli- 
tical economists to unravel ! 

We left, at Harwich, the relays of kind friends who had passed 
us along in their vehicles on the Southern shore, and resumed the 
stage convej'ance on the regular highway. From this point to 
Chatham (along the ankle of the leg), we saw, I presume, a fair 
segment of the primitive state of things — unaltered, I mean, by 
the new-faugleries of the march of improvement. The two ends 
of Barnstable County are in a state of transition — the upper end 
having a railroad running into it, and the lower end connected 
with Boston by a daily steamer — and, for old-fashioned Cape Cod 
manners and habits, the traveller will soon be obliged to confine 
his observations to this sandy betweenity. Trifles sometimes, 
show, like sea-weed, the reach of a resistless tide, and it amused 
me to notice that the article of lady's dress called a visiie or polka, 
(a brown over-jacket that has been, of late, a popular rage,) waa 
universal as far down as Yarmouth, scattering through Hyannis, 
unseen through Chatham, Eastham, Wellfleet and Truro, and 
suddenly universal again where the steamer touches — at Pro- 
viucetown. How soon these two converging tides will polka, the 
whole Cape, is a nice and suggestive question of progress. 

The houses in this intermediate region, are of a most curiously 
inelegant plainness — the roof all painted red, the sides of rusty 
white if painted at all, and the model invariably the same, and 
such as a carpenter would build who thought only of the cheapest 
shelter. Ornament of any kind seems as unknown as beggary. 
The portion of a house, which in every foreign country is deci;ntly 



SCHOOL-HOUSES, &c. 46 



concealed, — and unobserved access to which, is contrived, at the 
humblest cottage of Europe, in some way or other, — is here the 
most conspicuous and unsheltered of the appendages to a dwell- 
ing-bouse — an insensibility to delicacy, the more strange, as the 
females of this pait of the country are proverbially and fastidi- 
ously modest. The two next most conspicuous things are the 
school-house and the grave-yard — life's beginning and its ending 
— the latter a tree-less collection of white stones occupying, every- 
where, the sauiUiitof the highest ground. In one instance where 
it stood over a family vault, the white stone, with its black fence, 
was tho only object in the yard of a farm-house, and placed 
esactly betwaen the fi-ont door and the public road. The absence 
of taste wliich accompanies the Cape Cod disrelish of superfluities, 
is a tiling to be regretted, we think, though there are evils, of 
course, which follow close after refinement, as corruption after 
ripeness in most fruits of this wicked world. One of our ablest 
coutemporaiies, a Boston editor, writing a letter recently from 
the Cape, approaches the same quality of Cape character by a 
little different road. Pie says : — 

'• The amusements here must be few compared with other places which 
■we have visited, or must be peculiar in their character. There is no oppor- 
tunity for persons of a sentimental turn to take a promenade of a leisure 
afternoon to some romantic glen or grove, or a stroll by moonlight through 
some secluded path to a romantic spot, and enjoy the beauties of nature. 
The only promenade is the plank sidewalk which I have already mentioned 
as extending through the town by the water's edge, about which there is 
very little seclusion, poetry or romance. A ' pleasant ride,' for obvious rea- 
sons, is an operation of still greater difficulty. And this maybe one reason, 
why the Provincetown folks are generally a matter-of-fact people, possess- 
ing among ihem no crack-brained poets or dreaming philosophers." 

The same writer alludes complimentarily, again, to the severe 



46 RESULTS OF DANDIES. 



simplicity of the Cape, and we must quote the passage to explain 
why our assent to his virtuous sentiments is with a slight reserva- 
tion. He declares : 

" Loafers, dandies, and such like characters, are not tolerated on Cape Cod. 
And it is owing to this feeling that Provincetown, although situated on the 
most barren section of the Cape, notwithstanding the falling off in the salt 
business, once the mainstay of the place, continues in a flourishing condition, 
and is increasing in business, wealth, and population.^' 

Now, that dandies prevent the increase of husmess and wealthy 
is possible enough, and we admire, with our brother editor, the 
simplicity by which they are " not tolerated on Cape Cod ;" but 
the poor dandies have enough to bear, we think, without the ad- 
ditional charge with which our contemporary winds up his period 
— that they prevent the increase of '■'■ f ovulation y 

I must make up for finding fault with my friend's logic, by 
quoting, from his letter, a passage of his valuable practical infor- 
mation : 

"Cod, haddock, large flounders, stripped bass, mackerel, and a species of 
flat fish, called a turbot, may be taken in abundance but a short distance from 
the shore. The blue fish also is found in the bay this season, in greater 
number than has ever previously been known, much to the annoyance of the 
fishermen, as other kinds of fish eschew his company and seek less fierce and 
blustering companions elsewhere. Indeed I heard a similar complaint in 
other towns on the Cape, particularly Chatham, where they told me that 
the blue fish had driven all other fish off the coast. This fish, which is not 
so large as a middling sized cod, which it somewhat resembles in shape, is 
remarkably strong, fearless, active, and voracious — a verilable pirate of the 
seas — and cannot be conquered without a severe struggle. He is taken when 
the boat is under sail, with the line dragging astern —in the same way in 
which mackerel were formerly caught on the coast, and the king-fish, bar- 
racooter and other game fish aie taken in the West Indies. When hooked, 
te strives gallantly for life — and is aj^t to snap off an ordinary mackerel line 



CAPE COD STATURE. 47 



by Ills muscular efforts and sudden jerks, or cut it off with his sharp teeth. 
When caught in a seine — which is often the case— he makes sad work 
in the midst of his more quiet and philosophical companions in mis- 
fortune — often attacking the net which imprisons him, in a truly savage 
manner— biting and tearing it to pieces, and escaping from durance vile 
through the woful rent which he has made. This fish is excellent eating if 
cooked soon after he is taken, but is of little comparative value to salt or 
pickle ; it is therefore no wonder that he is seldom spoken of by fishermen in 
terms of affection or respect." 

There is one class of unusual personal beauty on Cape Cod, 
and I pointed out striking instances of it to my companion, from 
one end of our route to the other. There scarce seemed to be 
an individual, of the time of life I refer to, who was not a fine 
study for a painter — I mean, the man of seventy and upwards. 
1 never saw so many handsome old men in any country in the 
world. And it is easily accounted for, in their descent and pur- 
suits — the stern and manly Pilgrim type confirmed and perpetu- 
ated by their lives of peril and hardy exercise, while the visits to 
foreign ports, and absence from village dwindlification, has kept 
the physiognomy liberal and open. One part of it is less easily 
accounted for — the largeness of frame in these old men — for they 
seem like a race of Anaks in comparison with modern New 
Yorkers, and yet sailors are usually small men. There is a 
chance, perhaps, to get rid of the difficulty by Professor Gruyot's. 
theory, that vegetable and human life are not permitted by Na- 
ture to be luxuriant together ; for, by this law, in proportion as 
the Cape were barren and untropical in its vegetation^ its human 
product would necessarily be more luxuriant — smaller trees, 
larger Captains. 

The process of descent by which this rougher branch of the 



48 ANALYSIS OF A YANKEE. 



Pilgrim family have preserved the strength of the^ paternal out- 
line, would be curious to trace through all its influences ; and 
some future IMacaulay will give us the analysis of this and the 
other more refined and less massive handings down from the 
Mayflower. An admirable passage, bearing upon this matter, 
occurs to me while I write — a part of a Preface to " The Bige- 
low Papers" written by Russell Lowell — and I will take it out of 
that book, which was smothered in eccentricity, and preserve it, 
here, like a/oz'e gras in an earthern pot : — 

" New England was not so much the colony of a mother country, as a 
Hagar driven forth into the wilderness. The little self-exiled band which 
came hither in 1620, came, not to seek gold, but to found a democracy. 
They came that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit 
upon hard benches and listen to painful preachers as long as they would, yea, 
even unto thirty-seventhly, if the spirit so willed it. And surely if the 
Greek might boast his Thermopylae, where three hundred fell in resisting 
the Persian, we may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, where a handful 
of men, women and children not merely faced, but vanquished, winter, 
famine, the wilderness and . the yet more invincible storge that drew them 
back to the green island far away. These found no lotus growing upon the 
surly shore, the taste of which could make them forget their little native 
Ithaca ; nor were they so wanting to themselves in faith as to burn their 
ship, but could see the fair west wind belly the homeward sail, and then 
turn unrepining to grapple with the terrible Unknown. 

" As Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists had to fortress them- 
selves against, so it is little wonder if that traditional feud is long in wear- 
ing out of the stock. The wounds of the old warfare were long ahealing 
md an east wind of hard times puts a new ache in every one of them. 
Thrift was the first lesson in their horn-book, pointed out, letter after letter, 
Dy the lean finger of the hard school-master, Necessity. Neither were 
ihose plump, rosy-gilled Englishmen that came hither, but a hard-faced, 
atrabillious, earnesi-eyed race, stiff from long wrestling with the Lord in 
prayer, and who had taught Satan to dread the new Puritan hug. Add two 



DIFFERENCE FROM JOHN BUIX. 49 



hundred years' influence of soil, climate, and exposure, with its necessary 
result of idiosyncracies, and we have the present Yankee, full of expedients, 
half-master of all trades, inventive in all but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet 
capable of comfort, armed at all points against the old enemy Hunger, lon- 
ganimous, good at patching, not so careful for what is best as for w^hat will 
do, with a clasp to his purse and a button to his pocket, not skilled to build 
against Time, as in old countries, but against sore-pressing Need, accustomed 
to move the world with no pou sto but his own two feet, and no lever but 
his own long forecast. A strange hybrid, indeed, did circumstance beget, 
here in the New World, upon the old Puritan stock, and the earth never he- 
fore saw such mystic-practicalism, such niggard-geniality, such calculating- 
fanaticism, such cast-iron-enthusiasm, such unwilling-humor, such close- 
fisted generosity. This new Grcecidus esuriens will make a living out of 
anything. He will invent nev/ trades as well as tools. His brain is' his 
capital, and he will get education at all risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, 
and he would make a spelling-book first, and a salt-pan afterward. Yet, 
after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more like the Englishman of two 
centuries ago than John Bull himself is. He has lost somewhat in solidity, 
has become fluent and adaptable, but more of the original ground-work of 
character remains. He feels more at home with Fulke Greville, Herbert 
of Cherbury, Quarles, George Herbert and Browne, than with his modern 
English cousins. He is nearer than John, by at least a hundred years, to 
Naseby, Marston Sloor, Worcester, and the time when, if ever, there were 
true Englishmen. But John Bull has sufiered the idea of the Invisible to 
be very much fattened out of him. Jonathan is conscious still that he lives 
in the world of the Unseen as well as of the Seen. To move John, you 
must make your fulcrum of solid beef and pudding ; an abstract idea will do 
for Jonathan." 

My letter makes slow progress toward the "juin ping-off place" 

at the end of the Cape, dear Morris, but, though a friend said to 

me at starting that I should " find nothing to write about on Cape 

Cod," you see how suggestive, after all, are its clam-shells and 

3 



50 ON THE HEEL. 



sand. Consider me at Chatham for the present — on the heel of 
the hardy leg of Massachusetts — for here I must stop, short of 
my purpose when I began, but short of being tiresome, I hope^, as 
well. 

Yours, Sue. 



LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 

Lagging Pen — Sketch of Cape Cod Landladies — Relative Consequence of 
Landlords — Luxury peculiar to Public Houses in this Part of the Country 
— Old friend of " Morris and Willis" — Strap of the Cape Spur — Land like 
" the Downs of England — Sea-farming and Land-farming — Solitary Inn — 
Double Sleep — Hollow of Everett's Cape " Arm" — Pear tree over 200 years 
old — Native Accent and Emphasis — Overworked Women — Contrivance 
to Keep the Soil from -blowing away — Bridge of Winds — Adaptability of 
Apple-trees — Features of this Line of Towns-:— Curious Attachment to 
Native Soil — The Venice of New England, etc., etc. 

As you see, dear Morris, my pen follows me on my journey 
like a tired dog, but it will overtake me in time. Lag as it will, 
it is a rascal that sticks to its master — (1 am sorry to sayj — and 
if I were to go bed in heaven, without it, I think, I should see its 
tail wag with the first movement of my hand in the morning. 
" Love me, love my dog," however, for, like fairy drudges who 
treat theu* inevitables " like a dog," I prefer to have the abusing 
of him all to myself. 

In travelling on Cape Cod, one remembers where he takes tea, 
for the teapot and the landlady are inseparable, and the landla- 
dies are pretty women, from one end of the Cape to the other. 



52 CAPE COD LANDLADIES. 



The landlord, I noticed, is only " first mate" in this maritime 
country, and his wife is the indisputable Captain. As is the case 
all over the surface of the globe, where woman has the whole re- 
sponsibility, she acquits herself admirably, and I leinember no 
country where the landlady's duties and powers are so judiciously 
allotted and so well discharged as on Cape Cod — a fact particu- 
larly noticeable in America, where everybody does much more and 
considerably less than he ought to. My companion ('Member of 
Congress from this District^, having the " best front cAawjm-ber" 
as a matter of course, I was generally lodged in the rear, within 
cognizance of all the machinery of housekeeping — the trade with 
the pedlar, the talk with the butcher, the petting of the child, the 
hurrying of " them gals," and the general supervisory orders, 
from the gridiron in the kitchen to the remotest pillow-case up 
stairs, coming within unavoidable earshot — and my admiration of 
the landladyhood of Barnstable County, I freely own, increased 
with my knowledge of it. But for the view out of the window, I 
should not always have been sure that the vigorous handler of 
tongue and broom whom I saw and heard the moment before the 
bell rang, was the same gentle proposer of " green or black" 
whom I looked at over my shoulder the moment after ; but there 
she was — the same, save what changes were made, iii manner and 
habiliment, somewhere between back-stoop and parlor. The hair, 
evidently was dressed in the morning for all day ; and, on some 
habitual nail, probably, hung the cover-all polka, slipped on with 
the other tone of the voice, " in no time ;" and, by either, the 
dullest stranger would know the mistress from her servant. To 
the former, you looked, only when your " cup was out," or for 
whortleberries and milk. To " pass the potatoes" you must turn 
tc the girl with no collar on. It might have been only a curious 



NEW HOTEL LUXURY. 53 



coincidence, or it may be a professional attitude, but, when not 
waiting on guests, the landladies, everywhere on the Cape, pre- 
sented one picture — seated thoughtfully at the side-table with the 
cheek resting on the thumb and two fingers. In one or two eases 
I noticed that it seemed to be a favorite time, when new-comers 
were taking tea, to receive calls from the young ladies in the 
neighborhood — the visitors, whom I had seen radiating toward the 
house from various directions, coming in without their bonnets, 
like members of the family, and departing, bonneted, when the 
meal was over. With the gentlemen about, who were " regular 
boarders," I observed that the landlady was, (as they express ex- 
cellence in Boston,j " A. No. 1," gay, social, and, in manner, 
something between a sister and a great belle ; and, by the way in 
which my companion's advances to conversation were met, I was 
satisfied that sociability with the landlady is an understood thing 
— the public houses on the Cape being thus provided with a lux- 
ury, (a lady for a stranger to talk to, J which would be a desirable 
addition, even to the omni-dreamings-of at the incomparable 
Astor.* 

In the stage proprietor who was to furnish us our vehicle to 

^ As Ireland is the next country eastward, perhaps it may be apposite to 
quote a passage from Thackeray's travels, descriptive of Irish innkeepers 
and their wives — the contrast very much in favor of the kind civility of the 
same class in Barnstable County, while at the same time, our own hold a 
much higher relative position in social rank. He says : "I saw only three 
landlords of inns in all Ireland. I believe these gentlemen commonly, and 
very naturally, prefer riding with the hounds, or other sports, to attendance 
on their guests; and the landladies prefer to play the piano, or have a game 
of cards in the parlor ; for who can expect a lady t :, be troubling herself with 
vulgar chance customers, or looking after Molly in the bedrooms or Tim in 
the cellar !" 



54 CAPE COD PLOUGH. 



cross to Orleans, I found one of our old " BError^^ parish, who 
" knew us both like a book" — all the apartments of his memory 
papered with the editorials of those days of quarto — and he very 
kindly took the place of his driver, and put us over the road with 
his own good whip and better company. "We followed a line, that, 
on the booted leg' of the Cape, would be defined by the strap of 
the spur, and a beautiful evening drive it was, with half a dozen 
small lakes on the road and a constant alternation of hill and val- 
ley — though we were probably indebted to a glowing twilight, and^,* 
its train of stars and fragrance, for some modification of sand and 
barrenness. Over this ten miles of hill and water, scarce any one 
had ever thought it worth while to put up a fence, and, like the 
open Downs of Sussex in England, more beautiful ground for a 
free gallop could scarcely be found on the wild prairie. There 
are few or no farms, from Chatham across to Orleans. Here and 
there stands a dwelling-house, but its owner farms the more fer- 
tile Atlantic, where his plough runs easier even than through the 
sand, and his crops sow their own seed without troubling him.* 

* The analogy between land-farming and sea-farming is hinted at by 
quaint old Fuller, who, in one of his sermons, thus delivers himself: — "Why 
doth not the water recover his right over the earth, being higher in Nature ? 
Whence came the salt, and who first boiled it, which made so much brine ? 
When the winds are not only wild in a storm, but even stark mad in a hur- 
ricane, who is it that restores them again to their wits and brings them 
aileep in a calm ? Who made the mighty whales, who swim in a sea of 
water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them? Who first taught the 
water to imitate the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse- 
fishes, the stall of kine-fishes, the sty of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and 
in all things the sea the ape of the land 1 When grows the ambergrease in the 
.sea, which is not so hard to be found where it is, as to know what it is? 
Was not God the first Shipwright? and all vessels on the water descended 
f om the loins, or rather ribs, ol' Xoah's ark ? or else who dui'st be so bold 



SOPORIFIC AIR. 55 



The Inn at Orleans reminded me of that solitai-y alhergo half 
way over the Pontine Marshes — the inside of the house a refuge 
from the barren loneliness ■without — though the solidifying salt 
air of the Cape was different enough from the nervous drowsiness 
of the malaria. I shall remember Orleans by its dispensation ef 
sleep, for it seemed to me as if two nights had been laid over me 
like two blankets. Cape air, indeed, day and night, struck me as 
having a touch of " poppy or maudragora," and, please lay it to 
the climate if my letter weighs on your eyelids. 

With a charming pair of horses and a most particularly native 
Cape driver, we started, after our breakfast at Orleans, to skirt 
the full petticoat which JNIassachusetts Bay drops southward from 
the projecting head of Cape Ann. The thirty miles to the point 
of the Cape was one day's work. An hour or so on our way we 
stopped to see the blown-down trunk of a pear-tree brought over 
from England by Grovernor Prince, which had borne fruit for two 
hundred and twenty years. It lay in an orchard, at the rear of 
a house as old as itself, and the present tenant sells its branches 
for relics. The dii-ection of our driver, when we stopped before 
the door, may perhaps be usefully recorded as a guide to travel- 
lers, and I will try to spell it strictly after his unmitigated Cape 
pronunciation : — " Git r-a-ight «.-out, and step r-a-ight r-a-ound ; 
it's the back p-fi.-irt of the h-a-ouse." The letter a, in the na- 
tive dialect, seems to fill a place like the " bread at discretion" ia 
a French bill of fare ; and I was struck also with an adroit way 

with a few crooked boards nailed together, a stick standing upright, and a 
rig tied to it, to adventure into the ocean ? What loadstone first touched the 
loadstone 1 or how first fell it in love with the north, rather affecting that 
cold climate than the pleasant east, or fruitful south or west ? How comes 
that stbne to know more than men, and find the way to the land in a mist ?'' 



56 CONTENTMENT HERE. 



tliey have, of giving point to a remark by emphasizing unexpected 
words. This same driver, for instance, when we Commented up- 
on the worn and overworked look of the middle-aged females 
whom we met uj^on the road, replied, (and his voice sounded aa 
if it came up through his nose and out at his eyes,J " y-a-es ! they 
must work OR die!'' 

Around most of the dwellings, along on this shore of the Cape, 
there is neither tree nor shrub, and this gives to their houses an 
out-of-doors look that is singularly cheerless. One ship on an 
ocean horizon could not look more lonely. Even the greenness 
of the poor grass around the cottage is partly lost to them, for 
they cover it thinly with dead brush, literally to keep the soil from 
blowing away — so light and thin is the surface of loam upon this 
peninsula of sand. 

Lying between the Atlantic and the stormy Bay so well known 
as the nose of the bellows of Newfoundland, it is probably but a 
bridge of wind, for the greater portion of the year. A few apple- 
trees, which we saw in one place, told the story — the branches all 
growing horizontally from near the root, and sticking so close to 
the ground that a sheep could scarcely pass under them. 

We ploughed sand, all along through Eastham, Wellfleet, and 
Truro, seeing but the same scanty herbage, houses few and far 
between, flat-chested and round-backed women and noble-looking 
old men, and wondering, (I, at least,) at the wisdom of Provi- 
dence in furnishing the human heart with reasons for abiding in 
the earth's most unattractive regions, " All for the best," of 
course, but one marvels to remember, at the same time, that the 
most fertile and beautiful land in the world, on the Delaware and 
Susquehannah, equi-distant from New York and easier of access, 
can be bouglit for half the price of these acres of Sahara. 



BREVITY. 57 

The remainder of the Cape, from Truro to Provincetown, is the 
Venice of New England — as unlike anything else as the city of 
gondolas is unlike the other capitals of Italy — and deserves the 
other end of a letter. In the brevity of this, too, I take a certain 
vacation liberty, which I need, on the venerable and time-worn 
principle, that 

" All work and no play, 
Makes Jack a dull boy." 

Yours. &c. 



3» 



LETTER FROM THE END OF CAPE COD. 

Descriptive of the Last Few Miles of Cape Cod, and the Town at its . 
Extremity. 

At the point where I resume my sketch of Cape Cod, dear 
Morris, I coiild not properly date from "terra firmaP The 
sand hills, which compose the last few miles of the way to 
Provincetown, are perpetually changing shape and place, and — 
solid enough though they are, to be represented in Congress — the 
ten-mile extremity of the Cape is subject to a " ground swell," 
for the sea-sickness of which even Congress has thought it worth 
while to prescribe. I must define this to you more fully, for, 
literally true as it is, it sounds very much like an attempt at being 
figurative. 

Whoever travels between Truro and Provincetown, though he 
goes up hill and down dale continually, runs his wheel over the 
virgin sand, for, even the stage-coach that plies daily backward 
and forward, leaves no track that lasts longer than an hour. 
The republican wind, though blowing ever so lightly, commences 



CURIOUS STAGE ROAD. 59 

the levelling of an inequality as soon as raised, and the obedient 
particles of light sand, by a granular progression scarcely 
perceptible, are pushed back into the hole they were lifted from, 
or distributed equally over the surrounding surface. Most of the 
^^J) you are out of sight of the sea, and with this, and the 
constant undulation, there is little or no resemblance to a beach. 
Indeed it is like nothing with which we are familiar ; for, down 
in the bottom of one of those sandy bowls, with not a blade of 
grass visible, no track or object except what you brought with 
you, a near and spotless horizon of glittering sand, and the blue 
sky in one unbroken vault above, it seems like being nested in 
one of the nebulaa of a star — a mere cup of a world, an acre 
large, and still innocent of vegetation. The swell of a heavy sea, 
suddenly arrested and turned to sand, in a series of contiguous 
bowls and niountlets — before a blade of grass had found time to 
germinate, or the feather of a bird to drop and speck the smooth . 
surface — would be like it, in shape and superficies. The form, 
of this sand-ocean, changes perpetually. Our driver had 
" driven stage" for a year, over the route between Truro and 
Provincetown, and, every day, he had picked a new track, finding 
hills and hollows in new places, often losing his way with the 
blinding of the flying sand in a high wind, and often obliged to 
call on his passengers to " dig out" — a couple of shovels being 
part of his regular harness. It is difficult to believe, while 
putting down the foot in this apparently never trodden waste, 
that, but a few miles, cither way, there is a town of two, thousand 
inhabitants. 

Nature, that never made a face without somebody to love it, 
has provided " something green" to vegetate in every soil, and 
there is an herbage called the beach-grass which will grow 



60 DECEPTIV^E LAND-HO. 



nowliere but ia the sand — where nothing else will. The alarmiug 
variations of shore, on the inner side of Cape Cod, with the 
drifting movements of the sand, aroused, not long since, an 
apprehension that the valuable bays and harbors within the 
" protecting arm," might gradually diminish. It is an important 
quality, in a coast or a Congressional District, that you should 
"know where to find it," and Congress was applied to, for an 
appropriation to make the " protecting arm" hold still. Three 
thousand dollars were given, and — pile-driving, wall-building and 
other expedients having been found, by experiment, both too 
expensive and ineffectual — it was suggested that the planting and 
sowing of beach-grass over these moveable hills, would best 
answer the purpose. Like love, which binds with spider's webs 
that grow into cables, the slender filament of this poorest and 
slightest ol Nature's productions, holds imprisoned that which 
had defied walls and stockades, and, from the partial trials on the 
most exposed points, it is evident that Barnstable County can be 
made to permanently justify its name — offering, to storniTdriven 
ships, a shelter as stable as a barn. 

At the first sight of Provincetown, over the sand-swells, one 
feels like crying out "land ho !" — but, with nearer approxima- 
tion, the yielding element, over which one has been surging 
and sinking, acquires neither steadiness nor consistency. The 
first houses of the principal street stretch out to meet you, like 
the end of a wharf, with sand all around them, and sand still 
beyond, and, by a continuation of deep sand, you heave alongside 
of a plank side-walk, and warp up to the hotel — your horses, that 
have toiled at a dead pull, down hill as well as up, rejoicing at a 
" make -fa sf iu v,-hicli there is no more motion. 

Provincetown is famous for importing its gardens — the box of 



PECULIAR SAND-GAIT. 61 



soil in the centre of which a house stands, like a cottage in one 
of the floating gardens of Holland, being brought over in sloop- 
loads from terra-firma. These little earths, of which each owner 
was, in a manner, the maker, (who, by invoice, " saw that it was 
good,") are very neatly planted with shrubs and flowers, and, 
standing close together, in an irregular line, with the sand up to 
their close-board fences, they resemble a long raft which might be 
unmoored and set adrift at any moment. This, to me, gave a 
sort of Venetian aspect to this 'town built upon loose sand — the 
same impression of a city afloat having been produced by those 
palaces of Venice, set in streets of water. 

At the hitherward end of Provincetown, which is exposed to 
the winds and drifts of the sand-ocean I have described, the 
inhabitants seemed to be prepared to " dig out" at very short 
warning, for, from every house there runs to the water-side an 
embankment, such as is laid for a railroad, and, on the top, is laid 
a line of planks with a wheel-barrow and shovels. The high 
sand ridge, which, like a long hill, backs up the town, is dug 
into, like caves, at the rear of each dwelling, but it looks as if it 
might all be set in motion by a " snorter." At the other end of 
the town, the houses spread into two or more streets, and, in 
here and there a corner, it approaches the look of an ordinary 
town. One plank sidewalk, (three miles long, if I remember 
rightly,) runs the whole extent of the place, and on this you are 
very sure to see everybody stirring, for, to walk anywhere else is 
to wade. I was told that the Cape people have a peculiar step 
for the sand, however, laying down the flat of the whole foot and 
bending the knee, and not the ankle, to advance. The utility of 
larger feet must of course make them a beauty in so practical a 
place as Provincetown ; but, as well as I could see, under the 



g£ TWO PRETTY GliiLS. 

petticoats I chanced to meet, the feet of the ladies were of the 
usual dimensions. As a careful and observant traveller, I must 
record, apropos of ladies, that, among those who were promena- 
ding " before tea," on the plank sidewalk, I noticed two who 
were remarkably pretty. There was an air of tastefulness and 
gayety among them which I had not observed on the other parts 
of the Cape, and I presume I saw a fair representation of the 
belles of the " jumping-off place" — the liveliness that was given 
to it by the evident general habit of promenading on this only 
Irottoir, being a very pleasant opportunity of observation for the 
stranger. 

The time for closing the mail, at the place where I write, has 
overtaken me unexpectedly, and I will simply enclose to you one 
or two interesting extracts from another description of this place — 
(by Mr. Sleeper of Boston) — and reserve what else I may have 
to say of Provincetown for the commencement of another letter. 

Yours, &c. 

* Provincetown is about fifty miles from Boston by water, and one 
hundred and ten by land. The distance to Cape Ann, across the bay, is 
about fifty miles. Its appearance, on entering the harbor, is particularly 
striking. Indeed, it resembles no other town I have seen ; and in this, as in 
some other respects, it may be regarded as unique. Th6 town consists of 
some six or eight hundred wooden buildings, many of them neatly painted 
which are chiefly arranged on a street near the sea -shore, that extends in a 
slightly curved line, upwards of two miles. The sea-shore is lined with 
boats, hauled up to high- water mark, or lying on the flats ; and many small 
vessels are at anchor in the harbor, or alongside the wharves. The towers 
*nd steeples of the several churches gracefully rise above the houses ; and in 
the rear of the houses are a chain of abnipt sand-hills extending the whole 
length of the town, occasionally broken by valleys, which reach some 
distance inland. Some of these hills are covered with vegetation in the 
«hape of whor'.leberry and bayberry bushes, but the greatest portion of them 



SAND SOIL, &c. 63 



throw aside all deception, and honestly acknowledge that they are composed 
of sand — granules of light-colored quartz. The loftiest of these hills proba- 
bly exceeds one hundred feet; and from the summit of one of them in the 
rear of the centre of the town, on which the remains of a fortification which 
must have commanded the harbor is still to be seen, a most picturesque 
panoramic view is obtained, which well compensates a person for a much 
more arduous task than ascending the height. 

" The principal street is narrow — inconveniently so — ^being not more than 
twenty-five feet in width, and this includes a sidewalk of plank, for pedes- 
trians, extending the whole length of the town. On the north side, fronting 
the harbor, the dvi-elling-houses, comfortable-looking buildings, one or two 
stories high, are erected without much regard to order or regularity ; while 
on the opposite side are stores, warehouses, and entrances to the wharves 
and the beach. In the construction of the houses more regard is manifested 
for comfort than for show. 

*' The soil about Provincetown should not be regarded as altogether bar- 
ren — as being composed entirely of sand. Some of the hills are covered 
with a loose coat of mould, and the lowlands and valleys, off from the shore, 
are densely clothed with shrubs, and in some places dwarf pines and scrub 
oaks abound. Indeed it is an historical fact, that a considerable portion of 
this part of the Cape was formerly covered with trees, which have nearly 
all been cut down long since for fuel. Some of the bogs or swamps in the 
vicinity of the town have been " reclaimed," and this without any consid- 
erable labor; and the rich soil thus discovered — a sort of vegetable mould, 
five or six feet in depth — is found to produce heavy crops of grass, corn, po- 
tatoes, &c., which being always in demand, will richly compensate the enter- 
prising cultivator for his extra labor and expense, in converting an unsightly 
bog-bole into a fertile field or flourishing garden. JMany acres of land might 
in this way be made to produce good crops of corn, grass and vegetables, and 
as the good work is now fairly commenced, we hope in a few years to see a 
sufficient quantity of these agricultural productions raised in the vicinity of 
Provincetown, for the supply of the inhabitants, and a portion, at least, of 
the many fiihing and other vessels which enter the harbor. 

'"There being so few trees on this part of the Cape, of course fuel must be 
scarce. No peat has been found in this vicinity, and anthracite coal has not 



64 POPULATION. 



been yet introduced into general use. It doubtless will ere long Decome the 
principal material for fuel, as wood, which must be brought fiom abroad, 
and is chiefly imported from Maine, becomes more scarce and expensive. 

" The number of inhabitants in Provincetown, according to the census in 
1840. was 1740 ; it is now, probably, rising 2000, The business carried on 
here is principally fishing and manufacturing salt by solar evaporation. 
Cape Cod is famous for the salt business. It was commenced in many 
towns on the Cape some seventy or eighty years ago, and under the protect- 
ing care of the General Government, proved for many years a certain source 
of wealth. Investments in salt works were always considered safe, and the 
stock was always above par. It was never necessary to borrow money at 
two per cent, a month to keep them in operation. The reduction of the 
duty on salt, however, has in later years proved injurious to this business, 
which now yields but a slender profit. The works are in most cases still 
kept in operation, but it is not considered worth while to repair them, when 
injured by accident, or worn out by time. It will not be many years before 
the salt works, which now cover acres in every town on the Cape, will dis- 
appear. The appearance of the numerous windmills which are seen along 
the whole extent of the main street in Provincetown, pumping the water at 
high tide, for the supply of the salt works, is one of those objects which are 
likely to arrest the attention of a stranger to Cape Cod on visiting that 
place. 

" In Provincetown there are two very good hotels, where strangers can be 
accommodated on reasonable terms — one is kept by Mr. Puller, and the other, 
the Pilgrim House, by Mr Gifford, whom I found to be, a very accommo- 
dating host, desirous of contributing to the comfort of his guests, and ready 
to comply with their wishes and gratify their requests in every particular — 
' providing they do not call for intoxicating drinks ! Sailing packets ply be- 
tween Provincetown and Boston three or four times a week, and I trust that 
the arrangement of running a steamboat every other day will be persevered 
in, and meet with the success the enterprise deserves." 



LETTER FROM CAPE COD. 

Noteworthy peculiarity of Cape Cod — ElTects of Sand on the Female Figure 
— Palm of the " Protecting Arm" — Pokerish Ride through Foliage — At- 
lanticity of unfenced Wilderness — Webs+ir's Walk and Study of Music— 
Outside Man in Lat. 41° — Athletic Fishing — Good Eating at Gifford's 
Hotel — American "Turbot" — Wagon Passage over the Bottom of the 
Harbor — Why there are no Secrets in Provincetown — Physiognomy of 
the People — Steamer to Boston, etc., etc. 

In one pecviliarity, Cape Cod presents a direct contrast to any 
other portion of our country : — The houses and their surround- 
ings seem of an unsuitable inferiority of style, to those who live 
in them. In New York, as every body has remarked, there is 
nothing more common than a house by which the proprietor is 
dwarfed, if seen coming out of the door ; and, all over the United 
States, there is great chance of a feeling of disappointment on 
seeing a rich man, if you have, unluckily, put up your scaffolding 
for an idea of him, by first seeing his house. Few dwellings on 
the Cape cost over one thousand dollars, yet there are many 
wealthy men who live in houses of this cost — men, too, whose 
families are highly educated, and whose sons and daughters visit 



66 SAND INJURY TO THE BUST. 



and marry in the best circles of society in Boston and New 
York. 

Whether the sandy soil, which seems so unfavorable to osten- 
tation, is also the enemy which the climate seems to contain, as 
well, for the proportions of the female bust, I can scarce venture 
to say ; but flatness of chest in the forms of the feminine popula- 
tion of Cape Cod, is curiously universal. Those to whom I spoke 
on the subject, attributed it partly to the fact that the mothers of 
most of them had been obliged, in the absence of husbands and 
sons at sea, to do much of the labor of the farm, and all super- 
fluities had of course been worked into muscle. This is some- 
what verified by the manly robustness of the well-limbed sons 
of these Spartan mothers, but still it is unfortunate that the 
daughters^ (as far as I could judge by their arms and shoulders,) 
seem to have inherited the loss without the elsewhere equivalent. 
One notices the same falling off in the women of the deserts of 
Asia, however, and I am inclined to think that the arid sand, 
which denies juices to the rose and lily, is the niggard refuser of 
what nurture the atmosphere may contain for the completed out- 
lines of beauty. 

The end of the Cape, which you see spread like a hand, upon 
the map, is hollowed like a palm. This concavity is about ihree 
miles across, and has one or two fresh-water ponds in it, and a 
growth of bushes and stunted trees. We drove across this, at 
sunrise on the day after our arrival, the broad wheels of oui 
Provincetown wagon running noiselessly on the sand, and the 
only thing audible being the whirr of the bushes which swept the 
spokes and our shoulders as we went through. We had a fast 
tandem of black Narragansett ponies, and, as the foliage nearly 
met over the track before us, and we could see no road, and felt 



ATLANTIC OF SAND. 67 



none, the swift rush through the dividing bushes had, somehow, 
rather a pokerish effect. It was before breakfast, or I dare say, 
I should have thought of something it was like, in the jjos^-break- 
fast world of imagination. 

This bushy waste, of three miles square, with a populous town 
on its border, is, strangely enough, unenclosed and unappro- 
priated, though the law gives to any one the acres he is the first 
to fence in. On the street of Provincetown, they pay three dol- 
lars a foot for a building lot, and, an eighth of a mile back, they 
may have acres for only the cost of fencing, — ^yet no one cares 
fur what might (with merely laying plank paths through the high 
bushes,) be turned into "grounds," that would at least be a 
relief from the bare beach. The local ideas of enclosure are pro- 
bably formed from the deck of a vessel, and, if they can get thirty 
feet srjuare for i house, they doubtless look on all the space 
around as a i-yndy continuation of the unfence-able Atlantic. 
For my own part, (agriculture aside,) I wish the rest of mankind 
were as unappropriative, and the rest of the out-of-town world as 
common property. 

The object of our sunrise excursion w"as to see the beach at 
Race Point, the extremest end of the Cape, and three miles be- 
yond Provincetown — a favorite resort of Webster's, we were told, 
and where, wiih his gun on his shouldei-, he is very fond of a 
moruing of sporfsDian Misu^ss. The monotone of the measured 
jjLirf L< " tbuuderiugly fine," on this noble floor of sand, and it 
would be easy to imagine that it was here the great statesman 
took the key-note of iiis tide-like diapasons of eloquence. It 
sounded as Lis eye looks and as his thoughts read. The lonely 
extreuiity of this far-nut point is a fine place for a feeling of 
eepaniti.ai tVfim crowd- — the boundlessness of the ocean on one 



68 A CAPE DISH. 



hand, and the large-enough-ness of Massachusetts Bay on the 
other — and I pleased myself with getting as far into the Atlantic 
as the " thus far and no farther" of the water-line, and calling up 
a "realizing sense," (at the expense of a wet foot,) that I was 
the outside man of you all, for the space of a minute. One likes 
a nibhle at distinction, now and then. 

They have an athletic way of bass-catching, here, which would 
please me better than sitting on a low seat all day, as fishermen 
do, curled up like a scared earwig, and bobbing at a line. They 
stand on the beach and heave out the baited sinker as far as their 
strength will permit, and then haul in, dragging a powerful fish 
if the throw was a good one. This must be the best of exercise 
for chest and limbs, and the footing on the smooth sand is, of 
course, pleasanter than a seat on the wet thwart of a boat. I 
forget whether you are fond of fishing for anything smaller than 
subscribers, my dear Morris ? 

We came back at a round pace through the bayberry bushes, 
and found the best of Cape breakfasts awaiting us, a fried fish, 
which they call a furbot, commending itself to my friend's taste 
as a novelty of great delicacy and sweetness. This is not the 
English turbot, of course. It is a flat fish, taken with spearing, 
and seems to have something the relation to a flounder which a 
canvass-back has to a common duck. They are not sent away 
from the Cape, and you must go there to eat them. 

There is no wharf running to deep water at this place, and, 
chancing upon low tide for our time of departure, we were obliged 
to drive over the muddy bottom of the harbor in a wagon, and, at 
horse-belly depth, take a row boat for the steamer. The tide, 
here, rises from twelve to sixteen feet, and Provincetown, this 
*' gem of the sea," is of course, half the time, set in a broad 



MORTALITY AMONG SAILORS. 69 



periphery of mud. The wind had been blowing hard all night, 
and our small boat beginning gave one of the ladies a premoni- 
tion of a sea-sick passage to Boston. I had rather a sprinkly 
seat in the bow, but, as we bobbed up and down, I had a good 
backward look at the town, which, with the ascent of mud in the 
foreground, looked almost set on a hill. I hope to see Province- 
town again. It is that delightful thing — a peculiar place. The 
inhabitants looked hearty and honest, and the girls looked merry. 
They keep each other in order, I hear, by the aid of the plank 
sidewalk — for there can, of course, be no secrets, where there is 
but one accountable path in the whole neighborhood. Everybody 
at Provineetown knows every time everybody goes out, and every 
time anybody comes in. This might abridge freedom in towns 
of diiferently composed population, but men who are two-thirds 
of the time seeing the world elsewhere, are kept liberal and un- 
provincial, and the close quarters of the town only bind them 
into a family with their neighbors I have chanced upon the fol- 
lowing statistic, by-the-way, as to the dangers to life which these 
hardy people incur, and it is worth recording : — 

"It is stated on the authority of a sermon delivered by Rev Dr. Vinton, 
that, from tables actually and carefully compiled, it is ascertained that three- 
fifths of those who follow the sea die by shipwreck ! This is a large, and 
we should say, extravagant estimate ; if correct, however, it shows a degree 
of mortality among seamen, of which we had no previous conception. It is 
added that the average of deaths, annually, among this class, is eighteen 
thousand ; and that in one winter alone, twenty-five hundred perished by 
shipwreck on the coast of New England." 

This, wbich I found in a very pleasant book called " Notes on 
the Sea-shore," is followed by some valuable information, as to 
the preparation of the dishes for which Cape God is most famous. 
The author mentions that Daniel Webster is (in propria persona) 



70 TO COOK A CHOWDER. 



the allowed best cook of a chowder in all New England, and then 
proceeds with what I give you as a legitimate belonging to any 
faithful chronicle of the place I am describing : — 

" A. Fish Chowder is a simple thing to make. For a family of twelve to 
fifteen persons, all you have to do is this : — In the first place, catch your fish 
— as Mrs. Glass would say — either with a silver or some other kind of a 
hook ; a codfish, not a haddock, weighing ten or twelve pounds. There is 
more nutriment in the former than in the latter. Have it well cleaned hy 
your fishmonger, (keeping the skin on,) and cut into slices of an inch and a 
half in thickness — preserving the head, which is the best part of it for a 
chowder. Take a pound afid a half of clear or fat pork, and cut that into 
thin slices ; do the same with ten or twelve middling-sized potatoes. Then 
make your chowder, thus : — Take the largest pot you have in the house, if it 
be not ' as large as all out-doors;" try out the pork first, and then take it out 
of the pot, leaving in the drippings. Put three pints of water with the 
drippings ; then a layer of fish, so as to cover as much of the surface of the 
pot as possible ; next, a layer of potatoes ; then put in two table-spoonsful of 
salt, and a tea-spoonful of pepper ; then, again, the pork, another layer of 
fish, what potatoes may be left, and fill the pot up with water, so as to com- 
pletely cover the whole. Put the pot over a good fiie, and let the chowder 
boil twenty-five minutes. When this is done, put in a quart of sweet milk, 
if you have it handy, and ten or a dozen small hard crackers, split. Let the 
whole boil five ti;inutes longer — your chowder is then ready for the table, 
and an excellent one it will be. Let this direction be strictly followed, and 
every man and even woman can make their own chowders. Long expe- 
rience enables me to say this, without pretending to be a " cook's oracle." 
There is no mistake about it. An onion or two may be used, where people 
have a taste for that unsavory vegetable ; but our New England lad-ies, those 
of Connecticut perhaps excepted, although extravagantly fond of onions, do 
not like to have their male friends approach them too closely, when they 
have been partaking of the " unclean root," and their breaths are impreg- 
nated with its flavor." 

" With regard to clam chowders, the process is very difl^erent, but very sim- 
ple. Procure a bucket of clams and have them opened : tlieii have llie skiu 



TO COOK EELS. 71 



laken from them, the black part oi' their heads cut off, and put them into 
clean water. Next proceed to make your chowder. Take half a pound of 
fat pork, cut it into small thin pieces, and try it out. Then put into the pot 
(leaving the pork and drippings in) about a dozen potatoes, sliced thin, some 
salt and pepper, and add half a gallon of water. Let the whole boil twenty 
minutes, and while boiling put in the clams, a pint of milk, and a dozen haid 
crackers, split. Then take off your pot, let it stand a few minutes, and your 
chowder is ready to put into the tureen. This is the way Mrs. Tower 
makes her excellent chowders. Clams should never be boiled in a chowder 
more than five minutes : three is enough, if you wish to have them tender. 
If they are boiled longer than five minutes they become tough and indigesti- 
ble as a piece of India rubber. Let even an Irish lady-cook practise upon 
this direction for making chowders, and our country will be safe ! In sea- 
soning chowders it is always best to err on the safe side — to come "tardy 
off," rather than overdo the matter. Too much seasoning is offensive to 
many people, the ladies especially. 

" Eels — the way to cook them. — I have a great mind to enlarge upon this 
subject, but will not at this time. I will only remark that the eel is a much 
abused and much despised fish ; and yet, when properly cooked, it is as sweet 
as any that swims. Many, from ignorance, cut eels up and put them into 
the frying-pan without parboiling them: of course they are rank and dis- 
agree with the stomach. They should be cut up, and then put into scalding 
hot water for five minutes, when the water should be poured off, and the 
eels remain at least half an hour— to reflect on what the cook intends to do 
next ! They are then fit for cooking — the meat is white and sweet, and free 
from that strong rancid flavor which is peculiar to them before they go 
through this steaming process. They are commonly used as a pan fish; 
but they make a delicious pie, (with very little butter) or a good chowder." 

Our passage to .Boston was a matter of five hours, and we 
landed at the " T" in a heavy rain, dined at the Treniont, at 
three, and were at home in New Bedford at six, (per raih'oad,) 
having completed a circle of very agreeable travel in unmitigated 
Yankeedom. 

Yours, &c. 



LiTTTER FROM WALTON. 

Freedom from Work — Excursion on the new Scenery opened by the Ene 
Rail-Road — Walton, on the West Branch of the Delaware — Plank Road 
— Sugar Maples — Stumps out — Spots to Live in — Cheapness of Life here. 

Walton, West Branch of the Delaware, ) 
Jwm, 5 

My Dear Morris : — I came away to get out of harness, anci 
be idle for a few days ; but, as a horse, when turned out to pas- 
ture, takes a short trot before beginning to graze, to make sure 
that his load is not still behind him, I will try my hand this 
morning at an uncompelled scribble — stopping when I like, of 
course, or capering as the caprice takes me. Please, therefore, 
to consider me as "a loose horse," and look for no method in my 
pranks or paces. 

I date from a place so lovely, that I shall not be easy till I 
have sent every one here in whose knowledge of beautiful things 
I take an interest. A week ago I had never heard that there was 
such a place as Walton, Probably, to most of the readers of 



WALTON. 73 



the Home Journal, it will be a town now first named. Yet, a 
neighborhood better worth adding to the sweet world which the 
memory puts together and inhabits, could scarcely be pointed out. 
Let me tell you something about it. 

Walton sits on a knee of the Delaware, with mountains folding 
it in, like the cup of a water-lily. As I heard a man say yester- 
day, " they have so much land here that they had to stand some 
of it on edge," but these upright mountain-sides are so regularly 
and beautifully overlapped, each half-hidden by another, that the 
horizon, scoUopped by the summits upon the sky, is like nothing 
so much as the beautiful thing I speak of — the rim of the water- 
lily 's cup when half-blown. Steep as these leafy enclosures are, 
however, the valley is a mile across, and the hundred rich farms 
on its meadows are interlaced by a sparkling brook, which, though 
but a nameless tributary to the full liver below, is as large as the 
English Avon. I breakfasted this morning on its trout, and a 
stream with such fish in it, I think, should be voted a baptism. 

Walton has shed its first teeth — is old enough, that is to say, for 
the stumps to have rotted out — and of course it has a charm which 
belongs to few places so ofi" the thoroughfares of travel. It was 
found and farmed early, say seventy years ago — the settlers who 
appreciated its beauties and advantages, leaving eighty miles of 
wilderness behind them. I may as well say, here, by the way, to 
enable you to " spot" it, that it is about eighty miles west of 
Catskill, and as far south of Utica. Until the opening of the 
Eric Rail-road, its produce reached market only by a heavy drag 
over the mountains to the Hudson, and, as it lay upon no route, 
northward or southward, it has remained, like an unvisited island 
of culture in a sea of forest. With so small a population, the 
numberless brooks in its neighborhood are still primitively full of 
4 



74 SUGAR MAPLES. 



trout, its woods full of deer and gatue, and the small lakes in the 
mountains still abounding with pickerel and smaller fish. The 
necessaries of life are very cheap, delicious butter a shilling a 
pound, for instance, and other things in proportion. What a 
place to come and live in, on a small income ! 

Owing to a very sweei reason, (as sweet as sugar,) the 
meadows about Walton arc studded, like an English park, with 
single trees of great beauty — the sugar-maples having been 
economically left standing for their sap, by the settlers and their 
descendants. You can fancy how much this adds to the beauty 
of a landscape free from stumps, and richly cultivated up to the 
edges of the wilderness. In fact, Walton looks hardly American, 
to me. The river and its mountains are like the Rhine, and the 
fields have an old country look, free from the rawness of most of 
our rural scenery. You see I am in love with the place, but, 
barring that I see it in June, with its crops all waving and its 
leaves and flowering trees all amorously adolescent, I picture it 
as I think you will find it. 

How the Delaware gets out of this valley, without being poured 
over the horizon, is one of the riddles with which the eye plagues 
itself in looking down upon it from the hills. It apparently runs 
straight up to the side of the mountain, and, but for the swift 
current, you would take what is visible, of its course, to bo a 
miniature lake. The roads on its banks, and in every direction 
out from Walton, are the best of country roads, and there are 
enough of them to ofi^er every desirable variety in drives — this 
(take notice !) being an inestimable advantage in a country-place, 
and one which should be inquired into before a man settles him- 
self with expectation cf pleasure in country life. Horses enlarge 



PLANK ROAD. 75 



one's daily world from two miles square to twenty — ^where the 
roads are varied and tolerable. 

I almost grudge the public (the " promiscuous" part of the 
public, that is to say,) its next year's easy access to this lovelj 
spot — a plank road being in progress, which will bring it within 
two hours of the Erie Rail-road, and within ten hours of New 
York. It is to be finished this autumn, and, then, there will be 
no spot so desirable to New Yorkers as a neighborhood for coun- 
try residences. Though on the Delaware, it is not so near as 
New York itself to that part of the Delaware visited by fever 
and ague, and health, in its purest shape and quality, reigns in 
this transalpine region. To those who do business on the sea- 
board, a residence beyond a range of mountains is best, — the 
complete change of air, which is so salubrious, being securable, 
(as Dr. Franklin says,) only by a transalpine removal, and at 
least fifty miles' distance from the city. One could maintain a 
family (says a resident herej in better style at Walton for one 
thou:sand dollai-s a year, than in New York for four thousand ; 
and, adding better health to this economy, and having a convey- 
ance, between, as luxurious as are the cushioned sleeping-cars of 
the Erie road, the inducement seems irresistible. To the many 
who have inquired of me, by letter and visit, as to desirable 
locations for rural residence, I hasten to say — go look at Walton. 

At present, the access to this place is by stage from Deposit, 
on the Erie Rail-road — a ride of twenty miles. A part of this 
route is over what is called Walton Mountain, and a rough ride ; 
and, to those who have leisure, I should recommend making the 
excursion by private hired vehicle, and by a somewhat different 
route. Both Deposit and Walton are on the West Branch of 
the Delaware, and a road follows the river all the way, adding 



76 THE AMERICAN RHINE. 



but four or five miles to the distance, and revealing, at every 
step, most inexhaustible varieties oC beautiful scenery. If I am 
not mistaken, this West Branch of the Delaware is the Rhine of 
our country. I say, with confidence, that twenty or thirty such 
continuous miles of picturesque combination in scenery can be 
found no where else. The vegetation seems more luxuriant than 
on the East Branch, and the long ridges which monotonously 
hem in the Susquehannah and other rivers, are here changed to 
interlocked mountains, every one of which the river must almost 
encircle to get by. It is a stream of perpetual surprises, repeat- 
ing itself never, and never tame or unattractive. 

I have written a long letter, my dear Morris — right of idleness 
to the contrary, notwithstanding — and have only given you the 
pickings-up of this last day of my excursion. I started, as you 
know, on a scenery-hunt into the regions new-opened by the 
Erie road, and saw much that is well worth noting on my way 
hither. In another letter I will give you a sketch of this omitted 
portion, describing the scenery from Piermont to Deposit, etc., 
etc. With my present kind host and friend, Dr. Bartlett, I start 
to-morrow on horseback, to track the twelve miles of wilderness 
between the East and West Branches of the Delaware — a region 
untrodden but by the hunter and his game. If dame Nature, in 
this hei- unprofaned privacy, shows me anything of which I before 
had no knowledge or suspicion, I will reveal it to you and the 
world, under the usual promise of secrecy. 

Good night. 



LETTER FROM THE DELAWARE. 

Furnishing of Carpet Bag — Whip-poor-will's Reminder — ^Difference of 
Fatigue in Walking and Riding on Horseback — Coquetting of Cadosia and 
Maiden Usefulness — Oldest Delaware Hunter — Ride of Twelve Miles 
through the untrodden Wilderness — Dinner in the Forest — A Hundred 
Trout Caught on a single Ride — Desirableness of Walton as a Summer 
Residence — Promise of Description of Scenery on the Erie Rail-Road. 

Chehocton, at the Fork of the Delaware Branches, 

June — , 1849. 

My Dear Morris : — A carpet bag would be unworthy of so 
old a traveller as I, that should have left home without a sperma- 
ceti candle in its depths — idem, a box of matches. Thus armed 
against the dangers of lying awake and thinking of sins, (other 
people's, of course, mine own being tutored to come when they 
are called,) I am fortunately, to-night, enabled to defy a whip- 
poor-will, which, sitting in the tree before my window, seems de- 
terniiaed to sing down the stars. If my present week's vacation 
had not been of your own urging, I should suspect this importu- 
naic ] ird of an errand from Fulton street — the alternative, of 



78 A VIRGIN BROOK. 



the sleep he prevents, being a letter to you, and his three eternal 
notes, with their prolongation &t the end, having, to my ear, a 
rather pokerish resemblance to the " more cop-e-e-e-ee" of the 
printer's insatiate devil. 

Fortunately, I feel un-reluctantly wide awake ; and, by-the- 
bye, did you ever notice that, while walking tires both mind and 
body, riding on horseback fatigues only your animal portion, leav- 
ing the machinery of thought rather refreshed than otherwise ? 
I once read, in a medical book, that persons of sedentary and in- 
tellectual pursuits, should ride for exercise, if possible — the 
pedestrian action pulling upon those forcqs of the spine which 
support the brain, and thus adding to the fatigue it is meant to 
lessen. The remark explained, at the time, an enigma in ray 
own experience — the long walks, so sagely recommended after 
brain-work, having been repugnant to all my instincts — but, to- 
night, I have another confirmation of it, in feeling quite ready for 
work in my thought-mill, though I have been in the saddle all 
day. 

My friend Bartlett's purpose, in the rid<3 we have taken, was 
to present me to the acquaintance of a virgin brook, the Cadosia, 
— a silver thread through the wilderness— upon the shaded seclu- 
sion of whose course no road for the purposes of man has hitherto 
crushed a flower. It is nov/ under contract as the route of the 
Plank Road from Walton to the Erie railway, and its palpable 
design by Nature for this very project, makes its geography curi- 
ously interesting. Rising upon a summit within a few rods of the 
West Branch of the Delaware, the delicate Cadosia seemed des- 
tined only to the briefest of maiden existence, before an inevitable 
union with her stately neighbor. Quietly «nd unpretendingly, 
however, she turns away her head, pr-iforring a marriage more 



A DELAWARE HUNTER. 79 



remote, and a previous career of loveliness under her maiden 
name. Far through the wilderness of opposing mountains, she 
marks out and follows a gently winding valley of her own, and, 
after many a turn and loiter, is united, in riper and more com 
plete beauty, to the other branch of the Delaware, at the roman- 
tic village of Chehocton. I have seen many a charming girl with 
a taste for just such a career as the Cadosia's. 

We left Walton after one of its delicious trout breakfasts, and 
followed the Delaware, for about eight miles, in a wagon. At 
almost' every half mile, on this matchless river-bank, I saw some 
spot which, as a site for a cottage, commanded a perfect paradise 
of scenery, wanting nothing but a roof for shelter in its midst. 
The stream fairly waltzes on its way — so unceasing and constant 
are its curves. Every mountain sits with an Eden in its lap. 
The vegetation is prodigal to a degree that expiesses constant 
joyousness to the eye. The hills crowd to look over each other's 
shoulders at the dance of the river. Springs gush from the 
rocks at every little distance. Nothing but love could make a 
spot of earth any fairer. 

The summit near the rise of the Cadosia, overlooks a famous 
deer-gap, and here has lived, for seventy years, John Alderson, 
the greatest hunter of the Delaware. We were to leave our 
wagon at his house and take to the saddle. The old rifle-master 
sat at his door as we drove up — a tall and powerful man, with a 
physiognomy such as is moulded in the un-esacting forest, and 
his welcome, though simple as the nod of a tree to the wind, was 
hearty and agreeable. My friend had been here before, and, 
while the horses were being saddled, he asked a question or two, 
which drew the hunting-talk out of Alderson in graphic bits of 
description, but we had not the time to get him fairly into a 



80 GREAT TROUT-STREAM. 



story. I was sorry, for he is a famous narrator, and has had, 
they say, many a strange experience in his long life of adventure. 

We forded the Delaware at a rift opposite Alderson's, and, 
ascending to the summit, struck into the woods. '■ The Cadosia 
once found, its bank was our guide, but the untrodden wilderness 
is a rough pathway for a horse. Tangled thickets to pierce, 
rocks to climb over, fallen trees to leap, bogs to risk the plunging 
and wading, drooping limbs to dodge and ride under, kept us 
constantly on the alert at least, and our progress was necessarily 
slow. At the end of about six miles, we came to a rude log 
cabin, where the hunters, when they are all out, meet to divide 
their game and cut up their deer and bears, and this being at a 
pretty turn of the brook, we dismounted for a lunch. With a 
leaning-tree for an easy-chair, a large bass-wood leaf for a table- 
cloth and my knee-pan for a table, I luxuriated upon a sandwich 
and a certain excusable drink, with an appetite I would compro- 
mise to have always. If you read this with the summer smell of 
a city street in your nostrils, dear Morris, you may think of a 
dinner in those fragrant woods ; and, for the sigh that it costs 
you, quote my full authority ! 

We came out upon the Delaware a little after sunset, having 
been six hours in travelling the twelve mile course of the Cadosia. 
Of course we had loitered at will, and our two companions, who 
bad cut poles and fished as they came along, arrived,- an hour 
after us, with a hundred trout strung upon birch rods. When 
the plank road is finished through here, for another summer's 
use, this bright brook, so overrunning with this delicious fish, 
will be a great haunt for sportsmen. I trust that, by that time, 
there will be some comfortable accommodation for summer visi- 
tors at Walton — airy rooms, mattresses to sleep upon, cooking 



HINT TO TAVERNS. 81 



simple and clean, and willing attendance — all of whicli are neces- 
sities not as commonly provided for as would seem natural — and 
it will soon be known as the most desirable of secluded resorts for 
metropolitans. 

I have not heard my whip-poor-will for the last half hour, and 
1 presume, therefore, that I am at liberty to go to bed. My 
goose-quill has out-vigU'd him, I believe. Good night. 

Yours, &o. 



4* 



LETTER FROM FORK OF THE DELAWARE. 

Chehocton, Fork of the Delawares. 

My Dear Morris : — I had a feeling of vexation, just now, at 
seeing the rail-train go by, loaded with people — the impression of 
this romantic neighborhood, upon a traveller whirling past it in 
one of those rapid cars, being necessarily so erroneous and 
imperfect, compared with what he would receive from it with a 
day's halt and ramble ! One longs to call back the train with its 
careless passengers, and make every intelligent man go up one of 
the mountain sides, near by, and look about to see what he was 
losing. 

The two branches of the Delaware (known to the Indians as 
the two separate rivers, Coquago and Popacton) try hard to meet, 
on the very spot where stands the Railroad Depot. After 
separate courses for forty or fifty miles, they here rush point 
blank at each other, and come within a hundred rods of an 
embrace ; but lo ! a mountain puts down its immovable foot in 
opposition. Fretting slightly at the sudden arrest of their career, 
they gracefully part again, go round the opposing mountain and 
meet beyond it : — as pretty a type of most marriages as mocking 



CHEHOCTON. 83 



Nature could well have -given in her pleasant volume of 
hieroglyphics. 

On the instep of this twain-dividing mountain — a gracefully- 
shaped green knoll within a rod or two of the Depot of 
Chehocton — you may stand and look up the two Branches of the 
Delaware, with the Coquago on your left and the Popacton on 
your right, and there are few more admirable commanding points 
of scenery. The village below is small and almost entirely new — 
but of this I have a description better stored with facts than 
would be one of my own. An intelligent old gentleman residing 
here gives me the following sketch of Chehocton, and, as descri- 
bing one of the thousand available treasures of location laid open 
by the Erie Railroad, I think its information valuable : — 

" Chehocton, or, as nearer the original name of the primitive red man, 
Chehawkan or Shehowking, is situate on the New York and Erie Railroad, 
in the town of Hancock, in the county of Delaware, one hundred and seventy 
miles from the city of New York. This present village and railroad depot, 
are on a narrov/ neck of land where the two branches of the Delaware 
approach to within the distance of one hundred rods, and again receding, so 
as to embrace Fork Mountain^ an elevation of some three himdred feet, pass 
onto their confluence one and a half miles below. The name is said to have 
imported, in the Indian tongue, the marriage^ or wedded union of the waters, 
and if so, does not strictly apply to the present village. Whereas this place 
was, imtil the making of the railroad, one of the most isolated in the state, 
being seldom visited except by lumbermen, or farmers furnishing supplies ; 
it is now coming into notice as likely to become one of the most important 
depots for many miles on the route. For this. Nature has done much, the 
make of the couptry, embracing almost all of the valley of Eajst Branch, and 
also that of the West Branch, from its source to the distance of eight or ten 
miles below Walton, being such as to secure to Chehocton nearly the entire 
business of the inhabitants of an area of land embracing a surface of over two 
thousand square miles. The question may readily occur, inasmuch as 



84 VILLAGE PROSPECTS. 



Deposit is fourteen miles up the West Branch — why should the West 
Branchers come to the railroad at Chehocton? In order 1o understand this, 
it is only necessary to inspect the map of Delaware county. It will there 
be perceived that the two Branches of the Delaware have their rise near 
each other in the northeast part of the county, and run their tortuuus course 
south-westerly fifty or sixty miles, alternately approaching and receding, 
until, the West Branch having reached Deposit, it turns and runs toward."! 
the southeast, to approach its fellow to within the distance of one hundred 
rods at Chehocton neck, then passing southward ; and the two Branches re- 
ceding, so as to embrace Fork Mountain, an elevation of about three hundred 
feet, they pass on to their wedded union, one and a half miles below — the 
twain thus becoming one. Now, it is worthy of notice, that, while in the al- 
most entire course of the branches there is a high dividing mountain ridge 
between the heads of the streams running into either, yet, almost in a line 
between Chehocton and Walton, there is an exception, insomuch that the 
entire elevation of the summit at the head of Cadosia brook is little over 
three hundred and fifty feet above the West Branch, eight miles below Wal- 
ton. Through the Cadosia valley, and peissing this low dividing ridge 
through a deep cut, apparently purposely left by dame Nature, having a high 
mountain on either hand, a plank road is now in progress of being made. 
The distance hence to Walton twenty miles, with no grade over one hundred 
feet to the mile. The distance from Walton to Deposit, over Walton Moun- 
tain, is twenty-two miles — following the windings of the river, probably not 
less than twenty-five miles. In addition to the business which will thus, 
almost necessarily, come here from the valleys of both Branches of the Dela- 
ware, the people of Mount Pleasant, Carbondale and neighborhood, contem- 
plate a turnpike, to terminate here ; thus, in connection with existing roads, 
opening a communication with the valley of Wyoming, through which will 
be an easy route of travel from Albany to Harrisburgh. Additional business 
•will come from the south and east, so that a thriving agricultural and manu- 
facturing population, inhabiting a surface of nearly three thousand square 
miles, will contribute to the growth and importance of Chehocton. Nor 
does the growth and importance of Chehocton depend alone on its location. 
Its water-power, within a few rods of the railroad depot, is such as would 
lone insure its rapid growth. With little cost, any required quantity of the 



YOUNG MOUNTAINS. 85 



water of the East Branch can be so managed as that with a water head of 
eight or ten feet, it will afford sufficient power for various manufactories. 
For the tanning business, few situations, if any, can excel it. Hemlock bark 
is abundant and easy to be obtained, while the railroad offers cheap trans- 
portation to and from New York. Can it be doubted that these advantages 
will soon be brought into use. That this will be a place of great resort for 
the care-worn and business- worn inhabitants of New York and other places 
on the Hudson, for relaxation, and of the infirm in pursuit of health, its ro- 
mantic mountain scenery, pure air and water, and a medicinal spring of 
approved medicinal efficacy, render highly probable. Our streams and 
ponds, well stocked with fish, and the woods with game, will be strong 
attractions for the angler and sportsman. 

" Our plank road will be a further attraction, as affording the means foi 
pleasant excursions hence to Walton, and other thriving villages in the valley 
of the West Branch. If any have a true taste and relish for the sublime, the 
grand, the beautiful in uncultivated nature, let them come here and they may 
enjoy a feast." 

The hills in Europe being invariably bald at the top, one of the 
first exclamations of a foreigner is at the fullness of the foliage on 
the younger heads of American mountains. About Chehocton, 
the horizon is completely outlined with summits of such clustering 
luxuriance that it seems a circle of Nature's healthiest and finest 
children. The traveller should, at least, step out of the cars at 
this place, and take a glance at the formation of the country 
around him ; and if, by chance, he should be delayed at 
Chehocton, or choose to stop there for rambling or trouting, he 
must get the kind landlord, Mr. Falkner, to drive him, as he 
drove me, to the meeting of the Delawares below. Pennsylvania 
and New York here glance across the river at each other, and, 
by their respective best looks, with a mutual intention to make a 
favorable itnpression. 



86 BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 



On my way from New York hither, I saw several openings-in 
of valleys upon the route, where it was evident, that, to follow up 
stream or down, would disclose new and separate accesses to 
exquisite rural beauty. All of these I intend to stop and explore 
in my coming excursions ; but, just now, as some of our readers 
may wish for earlier guidance, I will close my letter with a simple 
programme of the features of the route as they first struck me. 

The Erie Company's boat reaches Piermont in an hour and 
twenty minutes, and the train thence winds alaiost immediately 
in among the mountains. The first lovely scenery begins with 
the valley of the Eamapo, and I should think, that, to stop at 
Suffern and explore for a few miles around on horseback " would 
pay." Ramapo, Sloatsburg and New Hampton are all picturesque 
neighborhoods, and would furnish most desirable sites for resi- 
dences to those who wish not to go beyond an easy distance from 
New York. Hence onward to Goshen the country is only 
beautiful from its fertility and high cultivation. The attractive 
points between this and Port Jervis are the Shoholy Creek, 
Narrowsburgh and Calocoon, aad at Port Jervis you come to the 
Delaware, which is a beginning of an uninterrupted extent of 
splendid scenery for a hundred miles. The road follows the bank 
of the river eighty or ninety miles, to Deposit, and this has been 
the extent of my progression on the present trip. Between Port 
Jervis and Deposit one's eyes are wanted on both sides of the 
track, and, like Gibbon, who said of his powers of illustration, 
after writing one or two books, that " his millinery was exhausted," 
the traveller wishes for some new way to say " how beautiful." 

You are " under bond" to excuse all abruptness in this my 

work of idleness, dear General, so 

Youis, &c. 



LETTER 

FKOM THE EAST BRANCH OF THE DELAWARE. 

Hundred Miles between Dinner and Tea — Broadway lined with Funerals- 
Daily Losses of Sunrise — Falls of the Sawkill — Delaware Ferryman — 
Milford and its Character — Search for the Falls — Underground Organ — 
River on End — Likeness of Genereil Cass in the Rock — Bare-toed Host- 
ess, etc. 

Port Jervis, on the Delaware^ July — , 1849. 
My Dear Morris : — A hundred miles betwixt dinner and bed, 
sounds like hard travel and late hours : but I dined in New York 
yesterday, at my usual hour, and, at half-past ten, went to bed 
on the banks of the Delaware — with as little fatigue as one would 
feel sitting at table, for the same length of time, over cigars and 
coffee. Please realize, dear General, that, any hot day, with a 
prospect of a sultry night in the city, you may leave by the Erie 
route at five in the afternoon, glide a hundred miles in a stuffed 
easy chair, go to bed early on the other side of the mountains, at 
Port Jervis, and be again in the city the next morning at eleven ; 
the perfection of scenery and fresh air, going, staying, and re- 
turning. As I looked at the full moon over this beautiful river, 
last night, I took a vow not to let" familiarity breed contempt." 



88 RARITV OF SUN-RISE. 



of these charming opportunities newly wedded to my enjoyment- 
no, not "till death us do part." I may mention, by the way, 
that the city, as I left it, gave me a strong contrast as a prepara- 
tive to enjoyment of life— one line of funerals threading Broad- 
way from Waverly Place to the Park, and the carriage in which 
I drove, passing seven hearses in that distance. It took many a 
mile of the animated and bright scenery of the Hudson to dis- 
place the melancholy spectacle from my thoughts. 

Prevented, by my departure, yesterday afternoon, from seeing 
Father Mathew welcomed to this side the water, (though the 
band of music going to meet him, played in a gap between two 
of the funerals just alluded to,) I determined to honor him in a 
symbol ; and was up this morning at four to receive the sun, — a 
minister of healthful influences like His Reverence, and like him 
" newly arrived from Europe," and entering with glowing and 
universal welcome on a path of blessing to the west. Did you 
ever see the sun rise, my dear Morris ? One blushes to think 
that the same magnificent affair takes place every common morn- 
ing, and scarce twice in a life-time does one trouble himself to be 
" there to see." Alas ! of the feast which Grod sets out for us, 
daily, how much of the choicest and sweetest goes from the table 
untouched ! > 

My purpose, on this excursion, was to see the Falls of the 
Sawkill, and I was on my way thither in a one-horse wagon, 
while the tears of the dai'k hours were still trembling on the eye- 
lashes of the trees. (How sentimental the country makes one, to 
be sure !) I was ferried over the river, at starting, by a Dela- 
ware raftsman, and he was such a clean-limbed, lithe, small- 
hipped and broad-shouldered rascal, in his shirt and trowsers, that 
I could not forbear telling him what a build for a soldier was 



DRIVE TO MILFORD, 89 



thrown away upon him. His reply expressed one of the first 
principles of Art in masculine symmetry — the " inverted pyra- 
mid" rule as to outline of proportions — and I therefore give it to 
you in the rough : — " Not much starn," said he, as he shoved 
away at his pole, " but I've allers noticed that chaps heaviest 
about the shoulders does the most work." 

My pretty gray pony favored his fore-foot a little as he climbed 
up the opposite bank of the river, but my weight (a hundred and 
fifty pounds and a heart as light as dignity would allow), was not 
much to draw, and he took me to Milford very willingly in an 
hour — the road taking the Delaware where the Brie route leaves 
it, and keeping along the west bank, six miles, to the mouth of 
the Sawkill. Milford looks like a town that all the mountains 
around have disowned and kicked into the middle — a bare, neg- 
lected-looking and unshaded village in the centre of a plain, with 
no sign of life except the usual tiltevs on two legs of chairs under 
the stoups of the taverns. The rail-road, I suppose, has passed 
just near enough to tap and draw off its " prospects," and the 
inhabitants feel too much stranded and aground to keep up any 
appearance of being still under way. 

From a man who was ploughing in a field, I got a vague direc- 
tion to " the Falls," which he seemed to think were very little 
worth going to see. Yet he looked like an intelligent man, and 
he had, at least, imagination enough to personify a production of 
nature, for, in reply to a remark of mine, he said, " yes, the sea- 
son is back'ard and tlue oats donH like it.'''' Pursuing, my way to 
" some'ers over that-ar gap," I came to the last visible house on 
the road, and alighted to leave my pony and strike across the 
fields. 



90 IGNORANCE OF WHAT IS NEAR Bf. 



" Can I tie my horse to your fence, Ma'am ?" I askod of a 
barefooted old dame who came out at the sound of the wheels. 

" You know best whether you know haow /" she said, looking 
sideways at my mustache with an evident doubt whether it was 
a proper thing for a woman to see. 

" How far is it to the Falls ?" I asked again. 

" Ten mile." 

" What, to the Sawkill Falls ?" 

" Oh, them-are ? No. I thought you meant the Shoholy 
Falls. What you mean, I 'spose, is just over the hill yonder." 

Across ploughed fields and through wild thickets of brush and 
wood, I made rather a doubting traverse, for I could hear no 
sound of falling water. I was about concluding that I had come 
up the wrong mountain, when I stumbled on a cow track, and 
knowing the hydropathic habits of the ruminating sisterhood, I 
was sure that one end or the other of the track, if a stream were 
near by, ended at its brink. My ear, presently, caught the roll 
of a low, heavy, suppressed thunder, (a deep-down sound, like the 
basso's, whose voice was in his boots,) and I felt at once 
rewarded for my pains — an anthem with an under-tone like that, 
being, of course, well worth the coming to hear. An increasing 
spray-moisture in the air, like a messenger sent out to bring me 
in, led me up an ascent to the right, and, with but a little more 
opposition by the invidious and exclusive birches and hemlocks, I 
" stood in the presence." 

If you can imagine a cathedral floor sunk suddenly to the 
earth's centre — its walls and organ-pipes elongated with it, and 
its I'oof laid open to the sky — the platform on which I stood might 
be the pulpit left hanging against one of the columns whose bases 
were lost sight of in the darkness below ; and the fall might repre- 



SAWKILL FALLS. 91 



sent the organ, directly in face of the pulpit, whose notes had 
been deepened in proportion to its downward elongation. From 
above, the water issues apparently out of the cleft-open side of a 
deep well in the mountain top, and at the bottom it disappears 
into a subterraneous passage apparently unexplorable, the hollow 
roar of which sounds like a still heavier fall, in the un-plummeted 
abysses out of sight. With what you can see of the depth, and 
what you can conjecture of the profundity by the abyssmal roar, 
you might fancy the earth's axis had gone through here perpen- 
dicularly, on a tunnel laid open by lightning, and that the river, 
like Paul Pry, had "just dropped in." Indeed, anything more 
like a mile of a river galvanized to stand suddenly on end, I 
never saw. 

With the aid of roots, overhanging branches, and ledges of 
rock, I descended to the basin of the fall, and, truly, the look 
upwards was a sight to remember. The glittering curve at the 
top of the cascade was like the upper round of Jacob's ladder 
resting against the sky — (the ascending and descending angels, 
of course, draped in muslin for the summer, like statuary pro- 
tected from the flies) — and, so dark were the high walls around, 
that it seemed night where I stood, with the light coming only 
from one bright spot radiating downwards. I endeavored to 
penetrate the dark chasm from which comes the subterranean 
music, but it looked to be rather a doubtful experiment, and hav- 
ing no friend there " to write my obituary notice," I deferred the 
attempt till I could make it in some sort of company. 

Congregation of waterfalls as Trenton is, and with much more 
water than here, there is no one part of Trenton, I think, equal in 
strangeness and sublimity to the single chasm of the Sawkill. The 
accidental advantages of view are most remarkable ; and, though, 



92 SUDDENNESS OF DESCENT. 



from twenty points, it is a scene of the most picturesLj[uo singu- 
larity, yet as a view downwards — into darkness, grandeur and 
mystery — the one glance from its summit cliff seems to me wholly 
unsurpassed. The dim and cavernous gorge below the fall affords 
a rocky standing-place — the nearest approach that can very 
easily be made to the resounding abyss out of sight — where a 
contemplative man, fond of the shadowy dimness of the sublime, 
might fancy himself in mid-earth, a-top of the thunder forge of 
Vulcan. It is a very pretty contrast to all this, by-the-way, that 
the pool above, before making the grand plunge of the fall, glides 
up, most tranquilly, to bathe the foot of a delicate aspen-tree 
rooted upon a moss-covered tablet of rock — the abyss opening 
beneath it as it turns away, like the trap-door in the Eastern 
story, which let through the worshippers of the enchantress as 
they knelt to pay homage to her beauty. Immediately beyond 
this, in the cleft of rock through which the stream first appears, 
is a curiously correct profile likeness of Greneral Cass — the nose a 
little out of joint perhaps, but the open mouth, prosperous double 
chin and one-sided toupee, true to the life. A curious effect struck 
me as I climbed up the s.ide — a view of the sheet of the cascade, 
through a very sparse fringe of foliage — resembling the most 
exquisite embroidery of sprigs of hemlock upon lace. 

From a man whom I met after finding the road again with 
some difl&culty, I learned that the Sawkill river is but about six 
miles in its entire length. It is the outlet of two small lakes, five 
miles above the Falls, and ruus a very smooth and common-place 
course till it comes to the mountain side which lets it down into 
the valley of the Delaware. I had followed it up, for a few rods 
of its undistinguished flow, through the fields above, and it cer- 



NO OBJECTION TO MONEY. 93 



tainly looked to have very little anticipation of what circum-pre- 
cipices and tight places were about to do for it. 

I had breakfasted on a cup of tea and no appetite, at half-past 
six, and, as it was now close upon noon, and my admiration had 
been largely drawn upon, I was a little hungry. Stopping at 
the first farm-house, I found an old woman toasting her bare 
toes before a pine-wood fire, (July 3d), and she readily set before 
me a loaf of new bread and a tumbler of spring water, of which I 
made such a meal as natural thankfulness says grace over. The 
old dame said she had a son that "was first rate" and two 
daughters, and I recommended to her the " speculation" of add- 
ing a room or two to her house, and accommodating people who 
might come to see the Falls. As you may get here in six hours 
from New York, and the spot is one of the most romantic in the 
world, it cannot be long before there is some such provision for 
travellers. I dare say the barefoot old lady herself might be in- 
duced to turn a penny in this way, (though she shook her head at 
the first proposition,) for, on my asking her if she would allow 
me to pay for my bread and water, she modestly fumbled with the 
tongs and said I might leave what I liked upon the table. 

In momentary expectation of the arrival of the train which 
will take me to another beautiful place farther West, I say good 
morning, dear Morris, and remain, 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER FROM MONTROSE. 

Port Jervis — Takes Two or Three Yankees to Start a New Town — Punctual 
Anaconda — ^Difference between Rail-roads in America and in England — 
Fall from a Mountain-top — Summit Level and the Storucco — Road in the 
Air, Passing over a Village — Great Bend — Cold Ride to Montrose — 
Edith May's Ownership of Silver Lake — Her " Bays" and Bay Horses — 
Rose's VUla in Ruins — Pic-nic Dinner in the Summer-House — Negro Pre- 
cedence — Complimentary Kindness of my Landlord — Celibacy of the 
Susquehannah's " Intended," etc. 

Having " boned and potted" the Falls of the Sawkill for you, 
my dear Morris, I found myself at Port Jervis, with an hour upon 
my hands, and went out to bestow my powers of absorption upon 
any who might be disposed to communicate. I learned that 
there are one or two pretty lakes in the mountains near by, where 
pickerel fishing " will pay," and trout-streams in all directions. 
Seeing the livery-stable keeper, of whom I had hired my horse 
and wagon, peddling bread from a baker's cart about the village, 
I hailed him to enquire in which of these conflicting vocations he 
was properly at home — for I had seen him curry his horses and 



A STATISTIC. 95 



clean out his stable with a circumstantiality that seemed to me 
hardly compatible with that morning's bread. 

" Why, yaess !" he said, " I daoo both. I'm a Yankee, and 
it takes two or three on us to start these naew taowns." 

His reply embodied a statistic, and I leave it on record, 
therefore, in the native dialect, for history. 

The train came out of the woods, like a punctual anaconda, at 
the precise moment when its puffing crest was expected, and I 
was presently coiling away westward on the serpentine edge of the 
Delaware ; the route from Port Jervis to Deposit being a perpet- 
ual " ladies' chain" — the petticoat of the mountain to the left no 
sooner turned, than you are thrown off to the right around the 
skii't of another, and so right and left for eighty miles, in constant 
alternation. Railroads anywhere are wonderful enough, but they 
seem much more startling, as triumphs over matter, when the 
obstacles that have been overcome are only removed beyond 
immediate reach of collision, and the swift train glides apparently 
over broken rocks, prostrate timber, awful chasms and furious 
torrents, as unhindered as a bird upon the wing. In England, 
where the only look-out, from the window at the side, is upon a 
smoothly-sloped lawn or a trim he<ige fence, the speed and 
unobstructivcness seem more reasonable. One " candidly con- 
fesses," as he sits upon soft cushions and finds all manner of 
obstinate things making way, right and left, above and below — 
thirty miles an hour, spite of precipices and prostrate timber, 
stumps, guUeys and mountains — that these two little iron threads 
through the wilderness were a great idea. 

The conductor very kindly pointed out to me a curiosity I 
should have missed, between Equinunk and Hankins — ^the road 
there passing under a steep mountain, from the very crest of 



96 RAIL-ROAD WONDERS. 



which pours a waterfall. His attention was drawn to it at the 
first opening of the road, by the splendid mass of icicles which it 
hangs high up against the sky in the winter-time, though the 
trees, which frill in its precipitous descent, almost entirely obscure 
it in the summer. It must be like a stream out of a cloud, in 
the season when water is plenty. It promised famously for 
exploring, but whether it was the outlet of a mountain lake or a 
table-land stream surprised by a precipice, we could not 
typographize from the platform of our unslackening car. 

As the train approaches the Susquehannah, there is a general 
liveliness of attention in the cars, the gentlemen giving over their 
naps and the ladies putting aside their veils, and preparing to 
look out of the windows — for here occurred the most formidable 
obstacles of the route, and the triumphs of engineering are very 
picturesque. A mountain of rock to be pierced, a gulf of two 
hundred feet to be crossed, and a village to be passed over by a 
road in the air, were three impediments to the descent upon the 
Susquehannah, which might well have staggered faith in the first 
survey of the road. In compliment to the curiosity of passen- 
gers, the engineer slackens speed at this point, and, between the 
rocky walls of the cleft door-way to the valley of another river, 
across the awful chasm of the Storucco, and down the inclined 
plane with Lanesboro' under its lofty arches, the cars move in 
stately deliberation. The wonder that one feels, here, however, 
at the achievements of enterprise and science, is mingled with 
admiration of scenery, for there is no spot where the Susquehannah 
is finer, than at this first view ; and, from here to the Great 
Bend, eight or nine miles, that noble river is perhaps in the 
plenitude of its magnificent beauty. The interval land in the 
bottom is varied with graceful mounds, the stream is fuller and 



EDITH MAY. 97 



statelier than the Delaware, from which the train has just crossed 
over, and the curves of the channel are laid out with most 
capricious unaccountableness. To stop at Lanesboro', and 
examine the scenery for ten miles around, would be, I should 
Bay, abundantly worth the traveller's while. 

It had been my own intention to pass the Fourth of July in 
exploring Summit Level and the Storucco ; but, hearing upon 
the road, that this point had been selected by the contractors, to 
give a jubilee on that day to the workmen, I kept on to G-reat 
Bend, nine miles farther. Within an hour or two from here lay 
two attractions, Silver Lake and its fair poetess, Edith May ; and, 
by nine o'clock, with a full moon, I was behind a pair of stout 
roadsters, climbing over the hills toward Montrose, with the in- 
tention to signalize, if possible, the national holiday of the mor- 
row, by seeing these two of our country's matters of pride, in 
lovely conjunction. A gem of a cultivated lake, set in a pic- 
turesque mountain wilderness, and a gem of genius set in un- 
usual personal beauty, were a combination, in the harmony of 
which there was a certain charm — aside from the " eye to busi- 
ness," of seeing something to describe, and at the same time pay- 
ing my respects to one who, of our Home Journal, is the foster- 
child and glory. 

You are very likely to read this with the thermometer at 
ninety, and I will therefore refresh you with the fact, that, though 
wrapped in the heaviest of cloaks, I was half frozen on the road 
to Montrose. The diiver found his great coat insufficient, and 
restored, to its original top uses, the bear-skin which formed our 
cushion, while the night-fog, crystallizing upon my beard, trans- 
formed me, as well as I could see by the glancing moonlight, into 
an Ice King, or its very reasonable semblance With a region. 



98 SILVER LAKE. 



thus brought by the Erie Railroad within eight or ten hours of 
New York, where you may shiver, to your heart's content, in 
the height of the summer solstice, there is small need for subject- 
ing families, at least, to any intolerableness of hot weather. 

Our friend Edith, besides her Pegasus, is the mistress of a very 
dashing pair of this world's long-tailed bays, kept, by her choice 
English groom, in the highest possible condition. In her light 
wagon she drove me to Silver Lake on the morning of the 
Fourth, and I must say I was never put over ten miles of road in 
better style — though the hills would pass for perpendicular by a 
very slight figure of speech, and the fire-crackers, of the boys on 
the way, varied the paces of our team with some desperate rear- 
ing and .plunging. Whatever was your weather in the city, on 
the Fourth, it was delightfully temperate and enjoyable in these 
northern mountains of Pennsylvania. 

Silver Lake was selected for a residence by a gentleman of for- 
tune, Dr. Rose, some twenty years ago. Building a handsome 
yilla upon its margin, he turned the forests around it into an 
English park and estate, leasing its cleared land to small farmers, 
and providing against any alteration of the features of the land- 
scape which should not be in accordance with taste. The Lake 
is perhaps a mile or more in circumference, of a water so singu- 
larly clear that you can see the fish anywhere upon its pebbly 
bottom, and hemmed in by wooded hills, partly cleared with a 
view always to the picturesque. Dr. Rose died about a year 
since, and his house having been, soon after, burned to the 
ground, the family have removed, and the place is a solitude. 
An immense Newfoundland dog, who seemed to be the only resi- 
dent left in the neighborhood, received us at the gate with the 
most extravagant demonstrations of joy ; but, leaving us to find 



PROPERTY BY RENOWN. 99 

our o\ra way through the grounds to the Lake, he stuck by the 
horses, which we left tied at the entrance, and followed us a mile 
or two on our return. He feels the changes of this uncertain 
world, poor fellow ! 

We passed around the blackened ruins to the garden, where a 
profusion of the choicest flowers were struggling with the over- 
topping weeds and grass, and, finding a squirrel sole tenant of a 
spacious summer-house at the boat-landing, we spread the 
contents of our basket, with a view of his making a third at bis 
leisure, and dined with a broad bench for table. The scene was 
Arcadj itself — a breathless lake of crystal visible through the 
shrubbery below, the air summer's sweetest, the birds the only" 
noise-makers, and traces of taste all about us — and I could not 
but recognize, as I looked at that beautiful child of genius leaning 
against the lattice in her simple straw bonnet and gazing off upon 
that little paradise of wood and water, that there was such a 
thing as ideal property in scenery — Silver Lake belonging to Edith 
May as the Avon does to Shakspeare, by title of superiority to 
all who had before lived upon its borders. So Cooper hag 
appropriated Otsego Lake, and Irving the Tappaan Sea ; and the 
acres of either of these spots of earth may be bought and sold till 
doomsday, without dispossessing the proprietor by renown — the 
owner of its associations — the one whose name will come up, 
linked with its mention, forever. 

Wc loitered po long in this captivating solitude that it took 
very sharp di-iving to reach Montrose in time for the coach I was 
to return by, hut my lovel}'^ friend's hays were as reliable as her 
laurels^ and she put me down punctually at the hour. The 
vehicle drove up presently, but, departing again to " accommodate 
some lady passengers" by taking them fi'om their own doors, it 



100 NEGRO PRECEDENCE 



returned witL eight negroes, its full complement. 1 had spoken 
for my place the night before, in coming over, but possession — ■ 
(black or white in this part of the country alike) — " is nine 
points of the law," and the colored gentlemen and their ladies 
were not to be disturbed. I had fortunately found an old friend 
in Mr. Searle, the landlord, however, (my former residence of 
Glenmary being but twenty miles from here), and he most kindly 
ordered up a pair of fast trotters of his own, and drove me, 
himself, the fifteen miles to my destination. We followed, for a 
considerable part of the way, a fine valley that was evidently 
** the intended" of the Susquehannah — that capricious river 
turning ofi" at the Great Bend, and going round, upon another 
route, three times the distance that it would have tiiken to reach 
the same point by this — and it was curious to see how ill the 
celibacy of the unwatered valley sat upon it, and how inexpressi- 
bly the slumber of a bright stream in its bosom would have 
improved its beauty and happiness. 

I shall come again to this neighborhood of Great Bend — few 
scenes in the world being more exquisitely lovely than the few 
miles above and below — but my letter is long enough for the 
present, and so adieu. 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER FEOM LAKE MAHOPAC. 

Right of Genius and Scenery to Visits of Admiring Recognition — Fountain- 
head of the Croton and Lake Mahopac — Harlem Railway to Croton Falls 
— Two Instances of High-bred Politeness — Yacht Fanny — Lodging under 
the Eaves — Drive to Mountain and View — Lakes of Different Levels — 
Resources for Future Watering of New York — Girls Boating — Visit to 
Beautiful Island in the ^lahopac — No Horses to Get to Peekskill — Possible 
Redolence of Style, etc., etc. 

Lake Mahopac, July, 1S49. 

It is with a certain feeling of relief, dear Morris, that I record 
my presence at this spot : for, among my instincts (and for in- 
stincts I have a reverential respect that grows with my know- 
ledge of life), there is one which commands me to pay tributes 
of deferential visit and recognition to either of two masterpieces 
of Nature, when I shall find myself in its neighborhood — to a 
very gifted mind or to a very beautiful passage of scenery. 

Were I a f^tranger to Cooper, for instance, and should pass 
throuj-li C lop^-'Jtown with-iut calling to pay my respects, or leave 
a card which iniu'ht express a stranger's acknowledgment of the 
honor due him by his countr}"^, T should feel that I had culpably 



102 DEBTS TO GENIUS AND SCENERY. 



omitted the payment of a loyal due to Nature. Or had I never 
seen Trenton Falls, and should persist in traversing the great 
thoroughfare to the West, without turning off at Utica to honor 
Nature by a visit to this her magnificent example of what she can 
do by felicitous physical (as ghe does in genius by felicitous moral) 
combination of her elements, I should, in the same way, feel 
guilty of a neglect of deference, which was more due as my own 
spirit was finer and more appreciative. 

Now, varlets that we are ! (and I will " make a clean breast" 
for the firm,' while I am about it) have " we" not, Morris and 
Willis, passed months together at your eyrie of Undercliff — 
eighteen mUes only from Lake Mahopac, the head waters of the 
Croton — and, with time and two gray horses on our hands, never 
once driven over to see the beautiful spot, which, like the unseen 
principle of life, keeps unsuspended watch over the vital circula- 
tion of our city's arteries, and, to its myriad healthful veins, sends 
the ever prompt and salutary fluid .? The Spirit of Beauty and 
the Spirit of Utility were alike neglected, in this unperformed pil- 
grimage. 

I am ashamed additionally to record, that, almost from our 
oflBce door, several times a day, runs a rail train to within four 
miles of Lake Mahopac, and vehicles ply regularly over this 
remainder of the way. The whole distance, about fifty-four 
miles, is done usually in three hours, and the route runs, most of 
its course, upon the banks of the Croton and its tributaries — in- 
different scenery, but an amusing ride, with its busy pprinkle of 
cits let off, right and left, to their suburban retreats, at every 
blow of the whistle. The New Haven trains, I should mention, 
run fifteen miles on the Harlem track, turning off eastward to 
Connecticut at Williauis Bridge. 



TWO POLITENESSES. 103 



I left town at five, and reached Lake Mahopac a little after 
dark. The driver said there were two public houses, and took 
me to the larger. The boarders were doing Polka to a piano, 
and, as the coach drove up, a gentleman came forward to the 
gate, whom, taking to be the landlord, I applied to for quarters. 
I must do our country's manners the justice to record the polite- 
ness of this gentleman. He might reasonably have turned his 
shoulder at being mistaken for a country landlord, but he, in- 
stead, courteously oflFered to accompany me to the landlady, and 
went before me, introducing me and stating my wish to a dame 
in the back parlor. I saw, by the better light of the interior, 
that he was a young man very fashionably dressed, and I thanked 
him with a mental admission that I had never, in any country, 
met an instance of more natural and true gentle breeding. 

Such things are pleasant to mention, and let me record another 
instance of my countrymen's politeness. I stood upon the shore 
of the Lake the next morning after breakfast, watching a beauti- 
ful little yacht that was running with full sail before the wind, 
when she suddenly put about, and made for shore. One of the 
three or four gentlemen who were in her, landed, and, remarking 
that they had observed from the boat that I was alone, offered me 
a sail upon the Lake. As I was a stranger to all the gentlemen, 
I need not say that it was a spontaneous courtesy that would do 
credit to the manners of any country in the world. 

To go back to my arrival — there was not a room to be had at 
the principal lodging-house, and I went on to the other, where the 
crowd on the stoop looked equally unpromising. One of those 
sharp little twelve-year-old Yankee boys, who, in New England, 
very commonly do all the bar-tending and host-playing of public 
houses, went up staii-s with me on a voyage of discovery and, in 



104 LAKE MAHOPAC 



a corner under the eaves where a pigeon might be appropriately 
lodged, we found a spot, at last, that had neither a lady's petticoat 
hanging against the wall, nor a gentleman's tooth-brush playing 
sentry on the washstand. With the sloping roof resting on the tops 
of my toes, here slept I, and, by the light from a window down at 
the floor, and as large, perhaps, as your spacious shirt-bosom, my 
dear General, write I to you now. Both of these public houses 
(to dismiss with one remark the matter of accommodations) are 
in the two-pronged-iron-fork stage of civilized progress, and this 
tardy lag behind the times is a little surprising, in a place so 
beautiful and accessible, and where a good hotel would so cer- 
tainly " draw." 

In the course of the forenoon, our friend Gray, who is lodging 
in a private house hard by, drove me partly around the Lake, 
and to the summit of one of the hills from which we could get a 
view over the landscape. The country around looks hard and 
Connecticut-esque, but the Mahopac is a most lovely sheet of 
water, with three wooded islands in its bosom, and the outline of 
the horizon is free and bold. The circumference of the Lake is 
about nine miles, and its shape offers charming facilities for boat- 
ing and sailing. There are four other lakes visible from the sum- 
mit of one of the hills ; and it is a very remarkable geological 
fact, by-the-way, that, only a few rods from Lake Mahopac, is 
another lake, a mile long and about half a mile wide, the surface 
of which is a hundred and fifty feet loioer than Lake Mahopac ! 
These different sheets of water can, all, easily be made tributary 
to the Croton, so that Providence seems to have provided means 
to water even another London, should Manhattan wax to that 
size and necessity. The height of these natural reservoirs above 
the Hudson, I understand, is fifteen hundred feet. 



A YACHT. 105 

The courteous commodore of the yacht Fanny, whose kind in- 
vitation to a cruise I most gladly accepted, landed me on one of 
the islands, and another gentleman and I explored it, while the 
rest of the party took a swim. It seemed to be about six or 
eight acres, heavily covered with wood, and shaped like the top 
of a volcanic mountain, with a deep dell, or crater, in the centre. 
A prettier place for a fancy residence (with stables and farm- 
house on the main land) could hardly be imagined. My friend 
had sailed his yacht up the Hudson to Peekskill, and thence, 
fifteen miles, she had been brought across upon wheels and 
launched for life upon the loftier waters of the Mahopac. He 
brings his family here every year, and spends his leisure charm- 
ingly, in cruising about among the islands, fishing and swimming. 
I noticed a considerable number of small row-boats, pulled about 
in all directions by young girls in sun-bonnets, and this fine exer- 
cise seems to be the amusement of the place, and one from which 
no danger whatever is apprehended. The boats were of a shape 
impossible to upset, and it struck me as a diversion for children 
most pleasant and reasonable. 

You are sitting in your slippers, " minding the Doctor," only 
eighteen miles from this my present writing, dear Morris, and I 
have been to the stables to look up a conveyance by which to get 
where you are playing the invalid. The horses are " all out hay- 
ing," however, and the easiest way, I find, to convey my sympa- 
thies to you bodily, is to return by railway to New York and 
steam it up the Hudson — a hundred miles round, easier than 
eighteen across. As this place becomes more frequented, there 
will, of course, be a plying of stages to Peekskill, and the route 
to the city will be a little varied. 

I am very glad to see the end of my letter, for I write upon a 
5* 



106 WARM WORK. 



wasbstand in a triangular garret, and it will be a strong case of 
isolation, if the smell of hot shingles from without, and vj^rm 
feathers within, have not given a tincture to my style. Good- 
bye to you across the mountains, my dear invalid, if your mag- 
netism can feel my neighborhood thus far. 

Yours, &o. 



LETTER FROM ERIE RAILROAD. 

A \\\'> >i'x Hours' Trip— Night's Sleep in the Cars — Waking up first at 
.\j f.n' ■>!' Two Hundred Miles — Wonders of Locomotion — Country 
■.Cav> rsi «rt Sunrise — Promiscuous Bed-room — Dressing in the Entry — 
Scenery ia .'"amed Panels — ^Drive between Susquehannah and Arched Via- 
duct — Entrance to the Storucco, and what it is like — Rainbow Bridge 
from Cloud to Cloud — Chasm of Rent-open Mountain — Cascade off Duty — 
Drive to Great Bend — Much Seen in little Time, etc., etc. 

As tired of town and toil as nerves and powers of attention 
could well be, dear Morris, I flung myself (as usual of late) into 
the refreshing arms of the Erie Railroad, the evening after getting 
our last paper to press. With the brief rocking and fanning of 
the twenty miles' boating to Piermont, I became quite ready for 
sleep in those two long iron arms (which, iron though they are, 
do the soothing of arms softer and shorter}, and I do not think T 
was conscious of a thought till within twenty naiiles of the 
Susquehannah. The cars that leave Piermont at evening (to 
explain the soundness of my repose) are fitted with reclining 
couches, ingeniously arranged for sleep in two attitudes, and aa 
most men leave the city for this train pretty well tired, most 



108 MAGIC TRAVEL. 



passengers sleep, from the Hudson to the Susquehannah, very 
soundly. The conductor, if you are not practised traveller 
enough to have anticipated him, politely suggests that you should 
pin your ticket on your sleeve, or slip it under the band of your 
hat, so that he need not wake you for a rummage into your 
pocket, when compelled, as usual after every stopping-place, to 
reconnoitre for new comers. 

" Here we leave the Delaware," said a voice as the cars came 
to a stop, and, thus awoke from my first sleep, I stepped out to 
air my eyelids and get a breath unpulverized with cinders. It 
was dawn, and the falling garment of Night was holding on by one 
button — a single brilliant star in the east. All of earth that I 
could see was thickly wooded, producing the impression — (so 
deliciously refreshing after a surfeit of town) — of a new world in 
its virgin covering of leaves. So far from the city, and how had 
I got here so unconsciously ! I looked at my conveyance to 
realize it : — two hundred miles, in a long row of houses, and 
without breaking my nap ! That this ponderous train of cars had 
borne me hither so softly and so swiftly ! I shall not stop 
wondering at railway travelling, I think, till we are 

" Borne, like Loretto's chapel, thro' the air." 

My errand, on this excursion, was to see the chasm of the 
Storucco — a rocky pass one hundred and eighty feet deep, over 
which the railway passes on a bridge of a single arch — ^and the 
village of Lanesboro', two miles beyond, was, of course, my 
stopping-place I had persuaded our accomplished friend, Miss 

, and the Doctor, to accompany me ; and the three of us 

were deposited on the stoop of a country tavern at the calamitous 
in-door hour of five in the morning. You image to yourself, at 



OBITUARY BREAKFAST. 109 



once, of course, the reluctant manners of the unshaved bar- 
keeper, and the atmosphere of the just-opened and unswept 
bar-room ! Where the lady was shown to, I did not enquire ; 
but the Doctor and I were ushered into a small bed-room where 
the oxygen had been for some hours entirely exhausted, and 
where, on one of the two beds, lay asleep one of our promiscuous 
gender. " Don't mind him," said the barkeeper, as we backed 
out from the intrusion, " it's only a friend of mine !" — but even 
with this expressive encouragement, and a glance at the sleeper's 
boots, which gave us a conventional confirmation that he was a 
man not to bo " minded," we persisted in leaving the sleeper to 
his privacy. Our aceommodator then offered to " bring us the 
fixin's" for a toilet in the entry, which we at once accepted, 
dressing with a murderous look-out upon the slaughter of the 
chickens for our breakfast. I daguerreotype these details, and 
similar ones, of things and manners as they are, foreseeing that 
railroads will soon irrigate the country with refinements, in 
contrast with which these primitive sketches may be curious. 

After a sort of obituary breakfast, on the chickens we had seen 
slain and the " deeds they had left behind them" in the shape of 
an orphan egg or two, we started in a rough wagon for the 
cascade. The way thither lay between a glory of Art and a glory 
-of Nature, for, on our left, lay the Susquehannah in one of its 
finest passages of beauty, and, on our right, the magnificent 
viaduct, high in the air, by which the railroad descends to the 
valley level. Sky and mountains, seen under a range of lofty 
arches, are like a series of stupendous panels of landscape on the 
wall of a gigantic cathedral — and those who have not stood on 
the Campagna of Eome, at the base of the great Aqueducts, and 
looked off towards Albano, with the mountains divided and framed 



110 VIADUCT LIKE A RAINBOW. 



into pictures by these massive lines of architecture, may here see 
effects even bolder and finer. 

The entrance to the Storucco reminded me of a call I once 
made upon a lady in Venice — my gondolier gliding into the very 
centre of the tall palace in which she lived, by a dark canal 
leading to a stair on the water level. The road turns into the 
Storucco at the point where the stream comes to the Susque- 
hannah, and the beauty of the place is reached by a long ascent. 
The glen itself is fine enough to repay a journey from New York 
to see — a fissure of a cracked-open mountain, with two or three 
different streams pouring into it — but the look upward, as you 
stand between two sky-reaching precipices, spanned across at the 
top by a single arch, is truly most impressive. A rainbow, turned 
into a railroad bridge for the passing of a chasm between two 
clouds, would certainly look no more remarkable. 

A friend of mine in the Navy calls brandy and water "a fine 
institution," and, if I had had more of two " institutions" for 
which I will borrow the phrase — time and a sandwich — I should 
have been delighted to make a day's exploration of the Storucco. 
It looks like a far-reaching cavern of the picturesque, of which 
we saw only the entrance — ^grandeur and darkness tempting 
powerfully on. Of the cascade we could hardly judge, the long 
drought having reduced its sheet to a mere trickle down the face 
of the rock ; but a fall of such a depth, and into such a chasm of 
darkness, must be magnificent at some seasons. We mounted to 
the bridge and looked over into the deep fissure which it spans. 
It is a startling wonder of mechanism, and the most educated 
man may, at first sight, marvel how it was thrown over. The 
men at work upon it while we were there, looked so like ants, as 



A KIND LANDLORD. Ill 



we saw tliem from the base, that it seemed impossible the bridge 
could be the work of creatures of thdr size. 

We had a curiosity to follow the bank of the Susquehannah to 
Great Bend, nine miles, and our landlord, (who kindly thought 
us worthy of trout and venison, and promised to send to me in the 
city what we should by rights have eaten at Lanesboro',) gave us 
a sort of top-less omnibus, and a pair of hardy little horses, with 
which we made the trip very comfortably. The scenery is much 
finer, this way, than seen from the window of a rail-car. The 
reaches of view, fore and after, were of perpetual beauty. My 
companions, who had not been in this part of the country before, 
felt abundantly repaid for their trouble in coming, and stayed at 
Grreat Bend, to return, the next day, with daylight, to see the 
Delaware. 

Obliged, myself, to be in town the next morning, I took the 
evening train, and slept over the track again most comfortably, all 
the way to Piermont, having passed a long and delightful day 
two hundred miles from the city, and yet absent from it, 
altogether, but thirty-six hours ! Things are getting handy, in 
these days, my dear General ! 

Yours, here and there. 



LETTER FROM COZZENS'S HOTEL 

Name of the Place -whence the Letter is Dated — CozzensV new Hot-?! — 
Cloven-Rock Road — Waterfall Ladder — Fanny Kennble's Batb — ^Weir's 
Chapel — General and Mrs. Scott — River-God's Hair — Theory of June 
and August — Charade by a Distinguished Hand. 



, June^ 1849. 

You will see by my erasures, dear Morris, that I have tried 
hard to date my letter with a word descriptive of the place where 
it is written. Like most new things, babies included, this new 
resort, which \$ still in its infancy, goes by the handiest name — 
but, as there is a time when " poppet" or " blessing" is formally 
exchanged for John or Thomas, so should we be thinking of the 
period when " New West Point Hotel," or " Cozzens's West 
Point Hotel," should be graced with an appellation both more 
distinctive and more ambitious. Grudging, as I mortally do, any 
time wasted on in-door work in June, I am not going to throw 
away the half-hour for which I have bothered my brains with this 
matter, and shall therefore record, in print that " will pay," my 
bibliographical, geographical and euphonious ransack for a name 
to this Hotel. 

" West Point Hotel" it is not — though it sits in the high lap 



HIGHLAND TERRACE. HQ 



of the same West Point Mountain — for the old and well-known 
Hotel of that name is still in existence, and, as the landings to 
the two places are but a short distance apart, it would be a con- 
stant embarrassment to strangers, if, in their names, there were 
even a resemblance. Then the old West Point Hotel having 
been made famous by Cozzens's keeping, the name of " Cozzens's 
West Point Hotel" would of course lead the remembering public 
only to the old and upper landing. Palpable mis-namings as 
these evidently are, however, the beautiful place from which I 
write is known at present, by no other. 

To find a name, then, and a descriptive one : Let us look 
first into its geographic peculiarities. 

The new Hotel stands within the portals of the Highlands, with 
mountains enough, between it and New York, to insure the 
change of climate so healthful in the resorts of residents on the 
sea-board ; and, if this were its only great advantage, it might be 
called, with descriptive propriety, the Transalpine Hotel — a 
name neither unmusical nor inexpressive. Its leading attraction, 
however, in the way of position, is the lofty bank on which it 
stands — the grounds of the house occupying a highland terrace, 
one hundred and fifty feet above the river, and the magnificent 
mountain which rises immediately behind it seeming literally to 
hold Cozzens and his caravanserai in its leafy lap. For position 
merely, Highland Terrace would be a name tolerably expressive. 

But, in creating an access to the place from the river, there 
was an enterprise shown by Mr. Cozzens, that would not be un- 
duly commemorated in its name. Two years ago, a precipitous 
rock, of near two hundred feet, " set its face" against any ap- 
proach to the spot from the river ; and the engineer, first con- 
sulted as to the cost of a wharf at the foot of this perpendicular 



114 BUTTERMILK FALLS. 



wall, thought Mr. Cozzens a little " out of his mind." Carriages, 
now, wind easily from its base to its summit — a spiral road hav- 
ing been blown out of the flinty mountaiu'Side, and the broad 
track, up which a four-horse omnibus goes with a trot, being as 
smooth as the Russ Pavement in Broadway. It struck me that 
Clovm-Rock Hotel would describe this feature pretty fairly, and 
as the road up is most picturesquely seen from the river, it would 
have a certain finger-post indicativeness that is desirable. 

The most enjoyable peculiarity of the scenery is still unnamed, 
however. The thickly-wooded banks of a bright, rocky and 
musical brook — with a descent so rapid that, at every few feet, 
you come to a mimic waterfall — tempt you from the hotel- 
grounds to a long ramble up the valley in the rear. There is 
nothing one wants more, at a public place, than the neighbor- 
hood of just such a shaded brook — to escape to, from too much 
society ; to seek with a book or a pencil ; to muse by, in idleness ; 
to track with friends, one or more, and, with the delicious accom- 
paniment of swift running water, talk philosophy or love. It is a 
clean, clear, darkly-shaded mountain rivulet, picturesque at 
every inch of its way, and worthy, in itself, of a name and a 
moderate immortality. It is better known in its death than in 
its life ; for, though few ever heard of the portion of its course I 
have been describing, everybody has seen where it slides over a 
rock, a hundred feet into the Hudson, and by the name (oh 
cacophonous horror !) of " Buttermilk Falls !" It would truly 
describe this pretty stream to call it Waterfall Ladder, and, if 
the Hotel (of which it is but a musical corridor) could afford to 
be named after so lesser an appendage, we might descriptively 
call it Shady Brook Hotel. Hudson Terrace is a well sounding 
name of which it is capable, also ; or, as the Eagle Valley opens 



ROBERT WEIR. 115 



behind it, it ynigbt be called Eagle Valley Hotel ; or, as Fort 
Putaam stands on the same side of it from West Point, it might 
with propriety be called Fort Putnam Hotel. 

Thus much of geographical reasons for names ; but there are 
one or two belongings of moral sentiment to the spot, which 
should at least be mentioned among its claims of nomenclature. 

Within a stone's throw from the portico of the Hotel, upon a 
knoll half hidden with trees, stands one of the most beautiful 
structures, of its kind, in this country — a stone church, of Eng- 
lish rural architecture, built by the painter Robert Weir. The 
story of its construction is a touching poem. When Mr. Weir 
received ten thousand dollars from Government, for his picture 
on the panel of the Capitol, he invested it, untouched, for the 
benefit of his three children. On the death of these children — 
all three — soon after, the money reverted to him, but he had a 
feeling which forbade him to use it. Struck with the favorable- 
ness of this knoll under the mountains, as a site for a place of 
worship, much needed by the village near by, he applied for it to 
Mr. Cozzens, on whose property it stood, and who at once made 
a free gift of it for the purpose. The painter's taste and heart 
were set to work, and, with the money left him by his children, 
and contributions from Greneral Scott and others, he erected this 
simple and beautiful struetm'e, in a memorial of hallowed utility. 
Its bell for evening service sounded a few minutes ago— the tone 
selected, apparently, with the taste which governed all, and mak- 
ing sweet music among the mountains that look down upon it. 
From this beautiful vicinage, in the sentiment of which Mr. 
Cozzens's liberal gift makes him a partaker, his house might be 
called, if there were no name more appropriate. Woods-chapel 
Hotel.* 

* Mr. Weir named it " The Church of the Holy Innocents." 



116 WEST POINT ASSOCIATIONS. 



There is still another feeling, separate from the scenery, and 
perhaps the strongest with Mr. Cozzens himself, which might de- 
cide the naming of his house. The ground on which it stands is 
part of property he purchased while the old West Point Hotel 
was in his hands, and, being only a mile from the military college, 
it is associated inseparably, in his mind, with a West Point 
character and locality. He exercised so successfully, and for so 
long, the commissariat functions of the Army at this, its most 
romantic starting-post, and his hotel in New York was so com- 
pletely the home and rendezvous of officers and cadets, that he is 
essentially an " army man" — totally unwilling that the distance 
of but a mile from his old and favorite quarters should deprive 
him of his brevet of West Point associations. In fact, the mile 
between his hotel and the parade-ground, along the bank of the 
Hudson, is so lovely and beguiling, that it may well seem, in its 
whole length, but a promenade of the Cadet College itself. 
Now, of all this, to suit Mr. Cozzens, the name of his new house 
should have an indicating relish. What would comprise it, and 
still be distinctive and musical, I cannot cudgel out of my brains 
at this moment ; but there is a circumstance which gives, at least, 
room for a suggestion. The first guest at this, his new hotel, was 
the great soldier who is now at the head of our army, Greneral 
Scott : and his . singularly gifted family are here, the guests for 
the summer. Besides the General's identification with all that 
belongs to the army, Mrs. Scott, as you know, is the admired and 
counselling Egeria of the youthful sword and epaulette — with the 
cadets of West Point, as with the officers of the army, a Queen 
elect of deference and devotion. In all tribute to her husband's 
glory, she is of course a sharer ; but her influence at the Point, 
makes it fitter for her sharing, if o£Fered to him here. There 



CHIPPEWA. 117 



chances to be a fine bold word, which, notwithstanding Greneral 
Scott's greater achievements since, is a synonym for his name on 
his country's lip — Chippewa. To call this palace of a house, 
with its beautiful associations and surroundings, The Chippewa, 
would therefore, it seems to me, express all which, by this last 
array of reasons at least, is demanded in a name. 

I thought, when I began, that T should dispose of this part of 
my letter in a paragraph — but " what's in a name" is sometimes 
a pregnant question. In discussing the word for my date, how- 
ever, I have outlined, pretty fairly, the scenery which was to bo 
the theme of my letter, and with a touch or two of the pencil 
upon slighted points, I shall give you a sufiiciently completed 
picture. 

The knowledge of comfort., which Mr. Cozzens has gained by 
long experience as '' mine host," has been successfully brought 
into play in the structure of this hotel. It is full of conveniences 
and luxuries, and even the fastidious would be puzzled to name a 
want unprovided for. The shoio portion of the house — a second- 
ary consideration, of course — is only a little too splendid for my 
taste in the country. The costly carpets, rosewood and mai-ble 
tables, satin furniture and profusion of the largest mirrors and 
elaborate gilding, make of it a palace that might be appropriate 
enough for Queen Victoria, but which was scarce needed here. 
Even if, '^as is likely enough,) it was Mr. Cozzens's sagacious 
guess at what would attract republican custom, I should have 
liked to see a house which was sure to be the perfection of com- 
fort, setting an example of simplicity in its ornament. Of the 
exterior no one could complain, the luodel of the building being 
most proportionate and imposing, and the portico, or covered 
ambulatory encircling the lower story, being singularly elegant. 



118 FANNY KEMBLE'S BATH. 



Thinking, of course, that Mr. Cozzens had been indebted to a 
very clever architect for his plan and the proportions of his rooms, 
I inquired, and found the designs to be his own. 

The views, up and down the Hudson, from the terrace lawn 
and the bold bluff a few steps beyond, are the perfection of pic- 
turesque- scenery ; and, from this same bluff, within a stone's 
throw of the colonnade, you look down upon what is profaned by 
the name of Buttermilk Falls — a lace veil over the face of an 
else bare precipice of a hundred feet. The whole descent is 
broken into two cascades, by the way ; and, from the bluff, they 
look like the backs of two river-gods, climbing up the mountain 
with their white hair streaming behind them. 

With the three ladies who formed my party from New York, 
and an English friend and his companion, whom I met yesterday, 
to my most agreeable surprise, at the foot of the Falls, I paid a 
visit to the glen on the opposite side of the river, known now by 
the name of "Fanny Kemble's Bath." " Indian Falls," as it 
was formerly called, was a frequent resort of the energetic 
lecturess when residing at West Point and pulling about the 
river in a skiff; and, as those were days when it was compara- 
tively unknown, she had its shaded rocks and waters uninter- 
ruptedly to herself. It is a spot from which the sky is almost 
shut out — three sides of rocks and leaves and one side of water- 
fall closing it in — and the prettiest place conceivable to pic-nic 
in, and pass the day. Mr. Cozzens took us over in his boat, and 
" posted us up," with his never-failing vivacity and agreeable- 
ness, in its legends of the old time and love-stories of the new. 

Bless me, what a delicious month June is ! The world to-day 
seems quite new — no remembrance of last year's June having in 
the least anticipated or dulled its complete uuvclty of freshness. 



THEORY OF SEASONS. m UQ 



I am inclined to think, dear Morris, that the wheel of our 
weather, in the course of its annual revolution, dips into the 
climate of heaven, and that the intersection takes place in June. 
What warmer world it passes on and intersects later — say in 
mid-August — is slightly indicated, perhaps, by the expressions 
with which the profane accost each other in that season — but, 
either to find heaven in June, or escape the resemblance of New 
York to " the other place" in August, I should name this Hotel 
of many charms as the best possible resort. For his skill in the 
art of life, pleasant companionship included, its enterprising mas- 
ter is well entitled to a diploma. 

My next excursion will be to a beautiful spot I hear of, but 
have not seen, upon the Erie Railroad, and, meantime, adieu. 



LETTER FROM GREENWOOD LAKE. 

A VAGUE rumor of a new place of summer resort, of which we 
could find no advertisement, nor get any definite description, 
tempted us to slip from our editorial harness, last week, and take 
a sniff of fresh air and discovery. That there was a " Greenwood 
Lake," somewhere hetween Orange and Rockland counties — 
somewhere between Goshen and Newburg — that a hotel had 
lately been opened on its shore for summer custom, and that it 
was to be reached by the milk-and-butter avenue of Chester 
Valley, was all that " general information" could furnish, as to 
its whereabout and accommodations. Just at this time, conver- 
sation runs mainly on these places of resort, and we presume, 
therefore, that some more definite description will be of interest 
to our readers. 

To begin with what you might else skip to find : — Greenwood 
Lake is sixty-five miles distant from New York, and the cost of 
.•caching Chester, ten miles from it, is one dollar and five cents, 
by the Erie Railroad. By the train, whose passengers leave 
New York in the Thomas Powell, (foot of Duane-st.,) at five, 
P. M., you arrive at Chester at nine in the evening. An open 
wagon takes you hence to the Lake in an hour and a half, or 



AFTERNOON EXCURSION. 121 



two liours, price one dollar — road rather rough and wagon-springs 
altogether unmerciful — and a large and showy hotel receives you 
on the edge of the water. Thus much for statistics, a la Guide 
Book. 

The " Thomas Powell" did the twenty miles to Piermont, as 
usual, in an hour and a quarter, and — apropos — as she returns the 
same evening, by half-past nine, and serves an admirable supper 
on board, what more delightful excursion could there be than 
this her daily trip .? She remains at Piermont two hours, and, 
Irving's residence being on the opposite bank of the river, and a 
ferry across just established, a look at Sunny-side and Sleepy 
Hollow might be included in the evening's pleasure. 

[Let us insert, here, a suggestion to omnibus proprietors. 
Considering the crowds of passengers landing continually from 
the ferries and steamers, why would it not " pay" to run a line 
along the water-side^ from the Battery to Canal-street, and so up 
to Broadway .' At present, the gauntlet of insolent drivers that 
one has to run, to get ashore, and the alternative, at your own 
door, between an imposition or a quarrel with hack drivers, are 
the disagreeable accompaniments of arrival ; and vex strangers, 
while they deter many citizens from making excursions at all. 
Giving his ticket to a systemized company for delivering baggage, 
the passenger might then take the omnibus, and the mere 
possibility of this escape from their extortions, would make 
drivers both more civil and more honest.] 

Of the rail road track of unparalleled beauty of scenery^ 
between Piermont and Chester, we shall have more to say, when 
we have rambled on foot, as we mean to do this summer, all over 
the miniature Switzerland threaded by the Eamapo river. Let 
the lover of the beautiful, (without contenting himself with a 



122 GREENWOOD LAKE. 



look from one window, and at one side, only,) place himself at the 
end of the last car, and, riding backwards, watch his path as he 
speeds along. It is a rapid succession of exquisite surprises for 
the eye, each one of the thousands of which would be a picture 
well worth preserving. The hint is enough, for those who have 
the taste to care for what is lovely. 

Grreenwood Lake Hotel has the usual mistakes of taste which 
such places invariably have, in our country — too much white 
paint, portico, parlor, piano, and pretension, and too little of 
what the needless excess' in such ostentation would easily have 
bought. As the house and its appurtenances are at present 
arranged, there is a want of refinement which would alone prevent 
any delicate person from staying there at all. But the capabili- 
ties of the location are great. The Lake is nine miles in length, 
and spreads away in a vast oblong mirror to the West, the high 
hUls which frame it are of fresh green forest, and the shape of the 
valley, in which it lies, is such, that the Hotel lies in a tunnel for 
the wind, and there is always a breeze in summer. With singular 
dulness to taste and convenience, the proprietor has set his house 
at a long distance from any shade, and the visitors who should go 
out when the sun were high, would be broiled before they could 
get to the woods. This makes the place uninhabitable for 
children. The one negro waiter, who had a ludicrous habit of 
concluding every sentence he uttered with " and so forth," 
betrayed the effect of this want of shade, in his account of the 
habits of the house, given to us at our solitary breakfast. 

" How do people amuse themselves here .'"we asked. 

" In the morning," he said, " the ladies ride a-horseback, etc. 
In the evening, they walk, and go out sailing, etc." 

" And what do they do, during the day .?" we inquired, hoping 



CONSTRUCTION OF HOTELS. 123 

to hear of some excursion to waterfall, or wood, or glen, or some 
other escape from paint and whitewash. 

" Oh, in the day-time, Sir, the ladies don't do nothing, except 
lay pretty still, etc.^^ 

When will the bmlders of new summer resorts learn that good 
mattresses and linen sheets are more attractive than columns and 
porticoes, and that the close neighborhood of woods is indispensa- 
ble .? When will they civilize to decency in the construction of 
the house, and trust less exclusively to the showiness of the parlor 
furniture, for in-door attraction ? With half what this hotel has 
cost, a house on Greenwood Lake might have been one of the 
most desirable places of resort in the country. As it is, we 
should suppose no person who had any idea of comfort would 
stay there a day. 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER FROM EAMAPO. 

IIamapo Valley, {Erie Railroad,) July 2. 

Dear Morris : — " Far enough away for a letter" is a 
measurement essentially altered, of late, by rail road and 
telegraph. Though forty or fift}'' miles from you, it seems almost 
absurd to write, when I could go to you in an hour and a half. 
" Away from home" is a comparative thing, after all — since & 
tortoise would measure it at twenty feet, and a bird at twenty 
miles. An advertisement, in a New York paper, of " a country- 
seat in this vicinity," formerly meant a place within five miles. 
As about one hour distant was thus implied, aiid you may now go 
thirty miles in the same hour, " this vicinity" is a phrase of six 
times as much meaning. The express train, on the English 
railroads, go, regularly, sixty miles in the hour ; and as things 
progress, we may as well call this Ramapo Valley a suburb of 
New York, for such it will be, shortly — (within half an hour of 
Hoboken, that is to say) — though a valley in Norway or Sweden 
is, at present, hardly less known or thought of. 

I had been so impressed with the glimpses of romantic scenery, 
which I cauffht in whiilinsr throufj^h the sixteen miles of this 



COMPARATIVE SUBURB. 125 



valley in the rail-cars, that I longed to traverse it with a loco- 
motive whose lungs and legs would give out, and wheels not yet 
disenfranchised from hills, ruts, and pebble-stones. The hottest 
day of the summer, thus far, was the one when I found the 
leisure ; and, as the trip commenced with a cool and refreshing 
rush into the breeze's arms (with the swift course of the " Thomas 
Powell" up the river,) yoibr sufferance of the heat, that day, was 
at least three hours longer than mine. I regretted that I had not 
brought you with me as far as Piermont ; for this delightful boat, 
which leaves at five, gets back to New York a little after nine ; 
and you can have, thus, four hours of cool comfort and beautiful 
scenery, without losing any important portion of the day in the 
city. Think of the cheapness of luxuries, by the way, when this 
lovely evening trip, twenty miles up the river and back, is paid 
for with a couple of shillings ! 

The Ra7iia'po Ravine., of sixteen miles, is a wild mountain 
vestibule to the open country of Orange County beyond. Our 
milk and butter, eggs and poultry, come out, by this long, 
shadowy entry, from the fertile plains where they are produced, 
r had taken a fancy to a stopping-place at the extremity of this 
porch of mountains — not from any recommendation, except what 
was contained in the looks of a very large and fine-looking land- 
lord — and here I proposed to sleep and find a vehicle to return 
leisurely through the valley the next morning. This station — 
" Turner's" — we reached at a little after eight, and, as the cars 
stop here, " fifteen minutes for refreshments," it seemed, for that 
space of time, very little like a place for a quiet night. Two 
hundred people, laying in what coffee and tea, pies and crackers, 
would sufiice them for a night's journey, make a confusion that, 
you "think, might last. But " all aboard," and two er three pant- 



126 TURNER'S. 



ings of the engine, and away they go — leaving their half-drank 
coffee and tea, and their half-eaten segments of pie — and the 
crickets are again heard outside the door, and all is rural and un- 
disturbed. Would that a rail-track could be laid through the 
mind, to dismiss its turmoils with as expeditious a completeness ! 

The road, at this place, runs above the roof of an old mill, 
with an old-fashioned tavern just below it, and the refectory, 
perched up alongside of the rails, seems not to have modified, 
essentially, the " entertainment for man and horse." I found a 
country bed, with country accommodations, and most civil and 
obliging people ; and the old horse, destined for my next day's 
explorations, had been " twenty-three years in the family." In 
the course of chat, before going to bed, I learned that the woods 
are full of game ; that the lakes, near by, are full of pickerel ; 
that a man sees, on an average, a couple of hundred snakes 
" round there" in a summer, and that board, in that region, is 
about three dollars a week. People are beginning to come out 
from the city to pass the summer months in the neighborhood, 
and there are several farm-houses in the village two miles beyond, 
(Monroe Village,) where they are ready to take lodgers. 

My drive down the Ramapo, for twelve rriiles, the next day, 
was the opening of a many -leaved book — as delicious a volume of 
scenery as the unbound library of Nature has to show. So 
winding ia the river, and so capricious the road, that every few 
feet bring you to a new scene, with exhaustlese novelty of 
combination, and a singularly picturesque character to all. The 
mountains are boldly crowded together.; the bright little river 
distributes its silver lakelets, and inlays its sparkling rapids, as if 
on purpose to please an artist ; the foliage is dense and luxuriant 
to the tops of the mountains; and the edge ©f the horizon, near 



TOWNSEND TRACT. 127 



f 



by, on every side, is in all varieties of eccentric grace and bold- 
ness. The Ramapo valley is really one of Nature's loveliest 
caprices, and its divine pictures will, one day, be made classic by 
pen and pencil. 

The most picturesque point of this long and winding ravine, is 
near the outlet of Tuxeto Lake — a bright stream that comes in 
from a beautiful sheet of water by this name, a little way back 
among the mountains. There is, here, a rocky cleft in the 
river's bed, through which rush a succession of waterfall-rapids, 
and — (curiously unexpected in so wild a spot) — the scene is here 
completed for the artist's eye, by the broken arches of some fine 
old ruins ! They are the remains of very extensive iron-works, 
formerly in operation here, and, as their site, of course, was 
chosen for the water-power, the crumbling walls are in the finest 
position for effect. 

The whole valley of the Ramapo has but three or four owners. 
The tract of many thousand acres, belonging to Mr. Peter 
Townsend, is the largest. Mr. McFarlan, the former member of 
the Legislature, owns an exquisitely lovely portion of it. The 
Lorillard family have another tract, and, further down toward 
Ramapo village, the valley spreads into a charming lap of 
mingled culture and mountain scenery, called Sloatsburg. Two 
or three gentlemen of the name of Sloat reside here ; and, with 
great taste and enterprise, they have surrounded their fine 
residences with every look of prosperity and comfort. The 
pretty village around them has one peculiarity — there is no 
tavern, and consequently no loungers nor any look of travel, and 
the whole place has a most captivating and park-like aspect of 
privacy. 

Sloatsburg was the termination of my twelve-mile ride, and. 



128 A LITTLE SWITZERLAND. 



hitberto, Mr. McFarlan, whom I had called upon, at his romantie 
residence a few miles back, had kindly accompanied me. For 
the interesting historic incidents which he gave me, connected 
with the scenery we stopped to admire on the road, I wish I had 
room in this letter, but I have already exceeded time and limits, 
and those who visit the Ramapo may like to learn its history and 
imagine its poetry for themselves. I pointed out, to this 
gentleman and to the Messrs. Sloat, any number of situations for 
villas and country-houses, such as " Mr. Capability Brown," of 
London, would consider of -unsurpassed advantages ; and (let me 
tell you) New York is yet to open its eyes at this Eden within 
reach — this little Switzerland within two hours of Broadway. 

Rather than wait for the more rapid mail-train, which I had 
intended to take at this station, I accepted a chair in the con- 
ductor's box on a slow freight-train, and so, with the fortunate 
opportunity of looking out on both sides, and seeing all of the 
country I was passing through, I pursued my way toward 
Piermont. The scenery, to the edge of the Hudson, is all 
beautiful. One wonders that the first opening of the railroad 
has not peopled such a valley with residents, at once. Like every 
new country, however, it is liable to fevers, where the water is 
stopped for mills and the moist vegetable deposit accumulates 
and decays, and this, perhaps, is a reason ; but, with management 
and care, this evil is soon removed, and then, what neighborhood 
of New York can compare, for a residence, with the valley of 
the Ramapo .'' 

With recommending a trip hither to every lover of beauty, and 
every reader of the Home Journal, I will close this long letter, 
dear Morris, and remain 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER FROM WESTCHESTER. 

Visit to Westchester — Speed of Harlem Train — Lots (of Dust) For Sale 
— Monotony of Elegance — Poverty necessary to Landscape — Reed's Villa 
at Throg's Neck — Bronx River Shut in from Publicity and Fame — 
Missing Train and Stage — Surly Toll-Keeper — Politeness of "Mine Host" 
— Suburban Manners of New York — High-bred Horse and Lovir-bred 
Owner — Contagion of Rowdyism, etc., etc. 

Dear Morris : — Before leaving town for the summer, I made 
an excursion from the Island of Manhattan to the main land of 
Westchester, but doubt whether I saw any thing unfamiliar 
enough to chronicle. My friend, who was to meet me with his 
horses at Fordham, had instructed me to take the three o'clock 
Harlem train in the city, and come to him " in forty minutes ;" 
but, though there seemed to be no unusual delay, we were one 
hour and fifty minutes performing this sixteen miles — a fact 
which will instruct any sanguine reader, who may think of passing 
the afternoon in Westchester, to take the morning train. Of 
dust, I think I have never " experienced" so much in the same 
time and distance. The "lots" between Twenty-seventh street 
and Harlem seem nothing but lots of dust ; and, either the law 
should take notice of fraudulent pretence, or the spelling should 



130 POOR-FOLKS IN LANDSCAPE. 



be altered upon the sign-boards — for they are fit only "/or sail^ 
before the wind. My travels in that direction, again, would not 
be willingly beyond the water's edge of the municipal water- 
cart, and I wonder how the " old family" population of West- 
chester County get to and fro — ^unless, indeed, they go by North 
or East River, landing at Yonkers, or Throg's Neck, with their 
carriages to meet them. 

Once away from the rail-track, in Westchester, you find your- 
self in a region of " country-seats" — no poor people's abodes, or 
other humble belongings, aijywhere visible. It struck me that 
this was rather a defect in the general scenery, though any one 
estate, perhaps, looked better for things exclusively ornamental. 
Or, is contrast always necessary in out-of-door pictures, and does 
no rich man's house show to advantage without a laborer's 
cottage in the back-ground .? Whatever degree of distribution of 
" poor folks," is necessary — (and whether needed to humanize, or 
furnish relief to the landscape) — certain it is that Westchester 
wants a dash of wretchedness to make it quite the thing. Miles 
upon miles of unmitigated prosperity weary the eye. Lawns and 
park-gates, groves and verandahs, ornamental woods and neat 
walls, trim hedges and well-placed shrubberies,, fine houses and 
large stables, neat gravel-walks and nobody on them — are notes 
upon one chord, and they certainly seemed to me to make a dull 
tune of Westchester. Remembered singly, however, there are 
lovely places among its winding roads. We drove in front of 
Mr. Reed's cottage, at Throg's Neck, as the Eastern steamers 
swept past upon their route, and a finer picture than was formed 
by the broad waters of the Sound, the moving wonders of steam, 
the landscape beyond, and the charming ground immediately 
about us, could scarcely be composed by a painter. 



SUBURB MANNERS. \^l 



The Bronx is a lovely little river, but, like a beautiful woman 
seen through the window of a house where one does not visit, it 
seems inviduously cut off from sympathy. Private grounds 
enclose its banks wherever they look inviting. For so pretty a 
stream and so near New York, it is very little celebrated. There 
is many a " Ward" in the city, I dare say, where the Bronx was 
never heard of. The poor river, so aristocratically fenced up, 
might say, perhaps, like the Queen of France when her attend- 
ants drove a troubadour from her Palace-gate : — " admit him 
who can tell the world I am beautiful." 

A call we made, at a place of exquisite taste and beauty, 
had been a little too prolonged, and a half-hour's very fast 
driving did not repair the loss. Bidding good-night to my kind 
friend on one side of Harlem Bridge, I crossed to the other to 
take tlie stage for town — thinking my being too late for the train, 
was the extent of my misfortune — but the last stage was gone, as 
well. It was quite dark, and the toll-keeper was evidently used 
to giving his worst manners to foot-passengers at that hour. He 
very sulkily assented to enquire me up a conveyance to take me 
to town. The tavern was next door, and a light in the bar-room 
shov.'iDg two loungers chatting together, and a man lying at his 
full length on a table, he led the way in. I must give you the 
scene, as a specimen of the manner of receiving customers in the 
subui'bs of New York. 

" jian wants to go to town !" said the toll-keeper, stepping in 
before me and walking up to the inn-keeper. 

A look out of the corner of his eye, but no change of posture 
and no answer. 

" I am left by the train," I said, following into the room, 
" and must got home to-night ; h;ive you a vehicle .?" 



133 STYLISH TEAM. 



After a minute or so of motionless silence, " I don't know but 
what I have !" came forth very reluctantly, but the speaker was 
evidently resolved neither to rise nor say needless word, till 
bargain was first made. 

" For what will you take me to town r" 

"Three dollars." 

I diffidently suggested that the price seemed a large substitute 
for the shilling conveyance I had missed. 

" Would you bring me out here, at this time o'night, for that ?" 
said the man, pulling his h^-t over his face as if to go to sleep 
without further bother. 

As I really could not say that I would (bring my prostrate 
friend to Harlem for three dollars, were I to hear of his being left 
in New York by the last train) I assented to the price ; and he 
then slid from the table, and made his way yawningly to the barn. 
Now, what sort of a vehicle would you have anticipated from such 
manners ? I expected a potato-cart, with a board seat. 

One of the newest and most chaste models of trotting-wagon 
came round presently to the door, with a remarkably beautiful 
black trotting mare, in light and elegant harness — the whole 
turn-out very much beyond what I had ever seen in the way of 
*' livery." I was driven to town in admirable style, and, take it 
altogether, it was a very fair three-dollar business. But where 
would have been the harm of a little politeness "thrown in r" 

That a man can keep such a horse and such manners — one 
ownership for both — is, of course, a comment on the quality of 
New York suburban custom at an inn. I do not suppose the 
landlord at Harlem is more rude than his brethren at other 
stopping-places on the road, and it is evident that the " circum- 
stances" which had enabled him to keep such a team, had made 



ROWDY INFLUENCE. 133 



no call for improvement in civility. As a landlord, and well oflf, 
he was a mirror to reflect the manners of those he sees most 
of, and who drives such " teams" as he does. I have mentioned 
his want of tolerable behaviour, simply to introduce the question, 
of how far the rowdyism of the time affects the common manners 
of the country r • '^ 

I write this in the Highlands, at the back of Cro' nest, and 
meant to have spoken of my Westchester excursion only by way 
of introduction to descriptions of scenes less familiar — but I have 
filled up my space, and will start fair with another theme in 
anothe'" letter 

Yours, &o. 



LETTER FROM THE HUDSON. 

Highland Terrace, August — 

Dear Morris : — I mentioned that I had still a memorandum 
or two of my visit to West Point the other day, and, with your 
leave, I will chronicle as I go — though I am not sure of amusing 
you with topics picked up on such a thoroughfare of summer 
travel. As I am properly off duty, however, with an invalid's 
privilege, you will considerately expect no more from me than 
" slops" will sustain and season. 

I was strolling leisurely over the parade-ground, listening to 
the band, which was playing during a " stand at ease" of the 
afternoon drill, when three or four gentlemen passed me, walking 
faster toward the same attraction. They were speaking Spanish ; 
and I took them (by this and the white gloves the younger men 
wore) to be a party of Cubans. One of them, the eldest, how- 
ever, attracted my attention as he walked before me, and I com- 
mented on the un-tropical decision and character of his gait, and 
on a certain strong resemblance between hia profile and that of 
Garbeille's bust of General Taylor. The nose was slightly 
aquiline, and the whole air military, particularly the straight car- 



GENERAL PAEZ. 135 



riage of the back and head, and the firm planting of the feet. 
The resemblance to the late President suggested a comparison 
between the two heads, and I remarked a difiference, in the much 
larger combativeness of the Spaniard, Taylor having been 
moderately developed in this animal organ, and drawing his 
courage from the better controlled organ of firmness. I had very 
little idea that I was thus unconsciously comparing the heads 
and motive principles of Taylor and Paez ! 

The commanding officer at the Point kindly presented me to 
the "Venezuelan hero, as we stood in a group of listeners to the 
music, a few minutes after, and I had an opportunity of observ- 
ing his face and mien more closely. Paez is a most powerfully 
and compactly framed man, not very tall, but with all his physi- 
cal faculties in admirably perfect development. His brow is well 
rounded, his eyes are good-humored and alive with perception 
and prompt fearlessness, his skin is dark, and the lines about his 
mouth full of chivalric expression. A grey moustache, clipped 
short, gave a rather more heroic look to his compressed lips than 
they might otherwise hava had, and possibly the military music 
added to this, for I observed that he was very much moved by it. 
With one air, particularly, which returned, at the close of each 
measure, to a rapid crescendo on the drum, (please ask your 
cadet boy the name of it, dear Morris,) the famous South Ameri- 
can was delighted quite beyond his soldierly reserve. Standing 
with folded arms almost immovable, during the drills and the 
other portions of the music, he turned to the several gentlemen 
around him, at each successive putting on of the vehemence, and 
expressed his pleasure, with a smile and some good round sylla- 
bles of Spanish ejaculation. It brought out the awakened glow 



136 EDITING OR SOLDIERING. 



of his face, and showed us how the hero may have looked, whej.*, 
but for the music, we should have seen only the man. 

The little band of gray-coats performed beautifully. This 
learning the trick of making ten thousand legs and arms move to 
the thinking of one brain, is a very picturesque process, though, 
as an actor in it, I should prefer some directly opposite system, 
which would give us the use of more brains for our legs and arms. 
Looked at from " the ranks," indeed, the two professions of 
soldier and editor are in direct contrast in this respect — a soldier's 
duty being but the ten thousandth of one man's thinking, while 
an editor's duty is to think for ten thousand. Since this has oc- 
curred to me, I have taken back a kind of sigh I remember, 
while looking on at the parade, (for I fairly wished my drudged 
brain were under the cap of one of those handsome cadets, learn- 
ing glory, with a commanding officer to think for me) — and I 
shall use it as a lesson of content. Please remind me, when I 
next murmur at my lot, of the above mentioned difference (or 
this view of it) between serving subscribers • and serving one's 
country. 

Speaking of gray coats, I understood, at the Point, that this 
classic uniform of the Military Academy is to be changed to a 
blue frock. It will be a sensible and embellishing alteration, and 
the cadets will look more like reasoning adults and less like 
plover in pantaloons — but what is to become of all the tender 
memories, " thick as leaves in Vallambrosa," which are connected 
with that uniform only .? What belle of other days ever comes 
back to the Point, without looking out upon the Parade from the 
window of the Hotel, and indulging in a dreamy recall of the 
losing of her heart, pro tem., on her first summer tour, to one of 
those gray-tailed birds of war > A flirtation with a gray coat at 



WEST POINT. 137 



the Point is in every pretty woman's history, from Maine to 
Florida. Suppress those tapering swallow- tails ! Why, it will 
be a moulting of the feathers of first loves, which will make a cold 
shiver throughout the Union. I doubt whether the blue frock, 
with its similarity to the coats of common mortals, will ever ac- 
quire the same mystic irresistibleness which has belonged to that 
uniform of gray. The blue may be admired, but the pepper-and- 
salt of other days will be perpetuated in poems. 

I went, of course, before leaving the Point, to see what Weir 
had upon the easel. His picturesque studio, with its old carved 
cabinet and heaps of relics and curiosities, was in as rich and 
artistic confusion as ever ; but, though the room was up to one's 
chin in lumber, there was standing room in front of his easel, and 
a sweet picture, just finished, stood upon it. The mind of the 
painter runs upon sacred subjects, and this was an ideal embodi- 
ment of devotion — a young girl of saintly beauty, with her hands 
clasped unconsciously in devout thought, and her calm eyes 
turned upward. It was an exquisite piece of colour, and con- 
ceived in a pure-hearted inspiration. I found the hands a little 
too slight to be in keeping with the full health of the face, but, as 
such inequalities of development do occur in Nature, and a trans- 
parent thinness of hands gives a look of more unira passioned and 
spiritual delicacy, perhaps the artist was right. He showed us 
also a portfolio of drawings from Scripture subjects, full of origi- 
nal vigour, and it seems to me that Weir's genius so runs upon 
this vein, that he would work altar-pieces and church pictures to 
more advantage than other branches of Art. Whatever he should 
do in this way, he would do with all his heart. 

Bayard Taylor was at the Point. Ptider's Hotel was full of 
good company, and all rejoicing in the presence of Mrs. Greneral 



138 MRS. GEN. SCOTT. 



Scotfc, which, besides much other pleasure that it gave, brought 
the band, two evenings in the week, to play, as a compliment 
from the Commandant. It is a remarkable band, by the way, or 
scenery heightens music, or, possibly. Nature's monotones give 
us a relish for brass. After hearing crickets and Katy-dids for a 
month, one's ear gets a hunger even for a trumpet. 

In so dull a vein, this letter must be long enough. So, 
adieu. 

Yours, &e. 



LETTER FROM HIGHLAND TERRACE. 

Invalid's Difficulty in Writing — Meeting with Durand the Painter — His 
Residence on the Quassaic — Sheet of the Hudson as Middle-ground to 
Landscape — Morris's Residence at Undercliff, in the Distance — Misnaming 
of River — Need of a Usage as to Name-giving — Process of Naming — 
"Nigger Pond-' — Mysterious Package by Post — ^Delay in Delivery of a 
Missive — Arrival of virhat viras Destined for me in the Time of our Saviour 
Head of Homer in an Intaglio — Object of Fate in having it Cut and For- 
warded, etc., etc. 

Dear Morris : — If a letter find its way off the point of my 
pen to day, it will be by force of natural declivity, for I am 
rallying after a week's illness ; and to slope a quill toward your 
name is the most of a " continuity" of which I feel any way ca- 
pable. I shall wiite, if it please Heaven. What we should chat 
about, if you were here, may possibly slide off " with intermis- 
sions," but, as to the subjects, I shall take them as they come, 
and obstinate sentences may "perish in their sins." Look for 
nothing that does not run trippingly off. 

Pottering about in a farmer's wagon, last week, (on my sum- 
mer's business of looking up scenery,) I overtook Dueand at the 
outlet of one of the ravines opening into the Hudson. The great 
master of landscape was taking an evening walk with hia daughter, 



140 THE QUASSAIC. 



and was not far from his hojne — such a spot as a sense of beautj 
like his should properly abide in. Really you would not wish 
Claude or Ruysdael better lodged. I had never before seen the 
beautiful stream which is here tributary to the Hudson, (and, on 
a natural gallery of which, his cottage is hung, like a picture 
high on the wall), but, with his verbal direction, I turned at a 
bridge over a swift current, and followed a winding ascent along 
its bank. One or two mills, whose buildings, dams and bridges 
are of very neat structure, give an air of utility to the outlet, but 
the shell-like curves and mounds of the acclivities, on either side of 
the winding valley, are laid out in ornamental woods and grounds ; 
and the views back, as you ascend — fdistant glimpses of the 
broad Hudson seen from the seclusion of this lesser stream and 
its verdurej — are most enchanting. Fine as the Hudson is, it is 
finest as the middle-ground to a picture. It needs a foreground 
for its best effects — such a one as you get from these lovely re- 
treating eminences with promontories on either bank. Our back- 
ground, blue and misty, was the mountain range you say your 
own prayers up against, my dear General, when you tip your 
Hudson-facing chair, at Undercliff, into an attitude of devotion. 
(Pardon my mentioning what is behind you, at such times. To 
turn your back on the world is all very well, of course, but you 
do it with more " spiritual grace" if you first know what thei-e 
was in it, worth seeing.) We will come over and see Durand 
and his bird's nest, together, some day. 

Till I see Downing, the Horticulturist, who lives within a mile 
or two of this bright little river, (and as its nearest celebrated 
man, is bound to" see it treated with respect,) I shall vainly con- 
jecture why one of the most romantically swift, rocky, deep-down 
and casoady streams in the world, is robbed of its good name and 



NAMING OF BROOKS. . 141 



belied by a false one. In the early histories, and on the county 
maps, this lovely water-course is called the Quassaic River, after 
the Quassaic tribe of Indians, whose favorite haunt it was ; but, 
by the people in the neighborhood it is only known as " Cham- 
bers's Creek" — a doubly misrepresenting appellation, since, in the 
first place a creek is a navigable inlet of still water putting up 
from a bay, while the Quassaic is a rocky and pebbly rapid from 
one end to the other ; and, in the second place, there is no pro- 
priety in changing the Indian name of a river to " Chambers's," 
because a person named Chambers comes to reside on its border. 
It has often occurred to me that there should be a timely and 
formal interest taken by American neighborhoods in the naming 
of their smaller lakes, falls, rivers and mountains. In the varied 
scenery of our country, there is many a natural beauty, destined 
to be the theme of our national poetry, which is desecrated with 
any vile name given it by vulgar chance, while, if taken in time, 
a more descriptive and fitting baptism would be both pleasant and 
easy. Why should not neighborhoods manage this desirable ob- 
ject by a pic-nic, or some other agreeable shape of gathering ? 
If a river, a " pond," or a fall, a ravine, a valley or a mountain, 
have a bad name or no name, the influential persons who reside 
near by, and who have frequent occasion to speak of it, might 
very properly call a meeting on the subject. The history of the 
country would, of course, be first consulted, and a name taken, ' 
if possible, from any Indian legend, stirring event or fine action, 
*f which the spot in question had been the scene. . Failing this, 
the opportunity might be taken to celebrate the memory of any 
departed great man whose home had been near. Other reasons 
of choice might occur, to the committee appointed to decide ; 
and, to make sure that the name be euphonious and poetical, 



148 NIGGER POND. 



(which it should certainly be,) the committee should be half com- 
posed of the more refined and more imaginative sex. The name 
once decided upon, its adoption might be the occasion of one 
general pic-nic, or of any number of private parties with excur- 
sions to the spot, or a poem might be delivered, or an oration, or 
(why not ?) a sermon. I should be glad, indeed, if the Home 
Journal could suggest a usage of this kind. You will allow that 
it is wanted, when you take for example the most beautiful Lake 
in the romantic highlands of the Ramapo — a resort of unsur- 
passed rural scenery, and within two hours of New York — and 
what do you think is the only name it is known by ? " Nigger 
Pond !" 

The country Post-Office, which serves, just now, as the 
" Bridge of Sighs" between the lofty Highlands of the Hudson 
and the " shop" in Fulton Street — 

(" A palace and a prison on each hand" — ) 

brought forth a mysterious-looking package, a day or two since, 
which, considering that it had been probably seventeen or eighteen 
centuries on the way, it was an event to receive. Last from the 
Bay of Naples, and "favored by Captain Totten of tho U. S. 
Store-ship Relief," its previous delays for centuries, and its first 
posting by Fate, for this destination, were, of course, not de- 
finitely decypherable. Come to hand, at last, however, the 
removal of sundry envelopes disclosed, first, a case with broken 
hinges, imbedded in which lay a beautiful antique — an elaborate 
intaglio gem, representing the head of old Homer. Specimen of 
Grecian Art as this is, and found in Pompeii, (where, of course, 
it was a foreign curiosity at the time of this fated city's burial in 
lava,) I cannot specify to what respectable contemporary of our 
Saviour I am indebted, for its first forwarding from Athens, on 



DESTINY OF AN ANTIQUE. 1«3 



this its westward destination. Whoever he was, he probably had 
very little idea, that, past the post-office where it would eventually 
be delivered, would run an electric telegraph, which could do, in 
seventeen minutes, the distance which this gem would not travel in 
less than seventeen centuries ! Fancy the " direction" which a 
prophet who " knew the road" would have put upon this gem at 

starting : — From , Esq., at Athens, in the year One, or 

thereabouts, to its Appreciator, Esq., in the Hudson Highlands, 
via Pompeii and the Atlantic, and to be delivered in 1850 ! Em- 
barrassed as I certainly am, at present, " duly to acknowledge 
the receipt," of this missive so long due, I doubt whether Andrew 
Jackson Davis would not promise us a clairvoyant telegraph, by 
Rrhich we may some day track it back — from the Highlands and 
me, all the way to the Acropolis and its patient artist. Of the 
various hands through which it has since passed — from the first 
purchaser, who despatched it from Athens to Pompeii, in the 
reign of Pontius Pilate, to the purchaser in the eighteenth cen- 
tury who officiated in the Post-Office of Pate by forwarding it 
thence to me — I can only name the last ; and it will perhap^ 
umuse him to accept thanks, which he, as the last link in a chain 
as long as Anno Domini, is commissioned to pass back to those of 
whom he is the latest continuation ! 

Lieut. Flaggj.of the Navy, (if the above statement of facts 
Deeds reducing into a shape less explicit and more intelligible,) 
has most kindly remembered me, while the Frigate Cumberland 
has been anchored in the Bay of Naples, and sends me an ex- 
quisite antique, which he found in his rambles in Pompeii. It ia 
a head of old Homer, with his brows bound with the circlet, as 
he is commonly sculptured, and his sharp nose, relaxed eye and 
slightly parted mouth, in the usual expression of just completed 



144 A LIFT FOR OLD HOMER. 



improvisation. The curling beard, high cheek bone, emaciated 
face and round head, are all exquisitely cut in the pietra dura. 
I shall have him set in a ring, and distribute his likeness on the 
seals of my letters — this tributary mite, toward a revival of 
celebrity for immortal old Homer, having (possibly) been Fate's 
intention, in first having it carved and started on its westward 
way, eighteen hundred years ago. "Who knows but the best kind 
of immortality needs a lift, from time to time — eh, G-eneral ? 
But my letter waxes long, for a sick man's. 

Adieu. 



LETTER FROM HUDSOX HIGHLANDS. 

Hudson Highlands, August — . 
Dear Morris : — I have mended mj pen to the music of a 
cow-bell, and sit at a cool window on the North side of a 
pleasant farm-house — no interruption possible except from these 
very communicative poultry — (and, somehow, cocks and hens 
seem to have a great deal to say to each other) — so that, if 
comfort and leisure do not prevent, I am likely to inveigle this 
innocent summer's morning into a letter. Really, a day as 
beautiful as this should have a voice to speak for itself. If 
there has, ever before, been one as beautiful, and if its sunshine 
and breezes went past unrecorded, I can only say the Past should 
give back its unwritten. Is there no Morse, to make the shadow 
of a tree work like a pen in the sun's hand, and keep a diary as 
it goes round — to make a breeze tell what it reads, as it turns 
over the leaves in the forest — to take down the meanings of 
Nature, and " write words" for the eternal " airs with accompa- 
niments" given us by the winds and running brooks .'' What do 
you suppose the angels think, of our knowledge of what is about 
us ? I shall be surprised, a hundred years hence, if I do not look 



146 MOUNTAIN RIDE. 



back upon the world, and find that we have walked it like flies in 
a library — complacently philandering over the backs of volumes 
of secrets for which our poor buzz contained no articulation ! 

But, you are waiting for the history of my recent explorings. 
I have seen the world from the seat of a farmer's wagon, for two 
or three weeks, and have " got in" scenery, as my landlord has 
got in hay — till the loft is inconveniently full. My pen, that 
plays pitchfork, would easier give you your fodder if it were less 
weighed down with what you do not want. The rack gets its 
name, probably, from the painful disproportion between each 
" feed" and the size of the " mow." What shall I ever do, with 
all the beautiful trees, streams and valleys, that I have taken into 
•my memory in the last twenty days ; and which I can neither 
forget, nor re-produce in description .? 

To go round behind where the thunder comes from, has always 
been a wish of mine, when at West Point, and this I hav? 
accomplished at last, in a trip from the other side. I am 
ruralizing, as you know, on the Pacific Ocean slope of the Alps 
which look across Fort Putnam to the Atlantic. From here, aa 
from New York, " the Point" is, in fact, an island — no getting 
to it except by water — and the next easiest way to reach it 
seemed to be to climb up into the clouds and slide down from 
above, with the trick of some " gentle shower." I have done 
this — having faiily mounted to the cloud line, gone up through, 
come out on the other side, and alighted safely at Rider's. You 
should have witnessed mine host's astonishment at secinor me 

o 

arrive by a conveyance of which he knew nothing ! 

To describe the excursion more intelligibly : 

I "was indebted to a kind clorffjman, of the village near by, for 
the offer of cviiJancc in this rather unusual trip to West Point 



MONUMENT TO DUNCAN 147 



over the mountains. The distance is reckoned at about eight 
miles, and to go and return is a fair day's work. My friend, 

Mr. C , is a very, public-spirited man, and he had another 

errand beside showing me the road. He wished to make somo 
movement, at the Point, for the raising of a monument to Duncan, 
whose grave, without a stone to mark it, is on one of the emi- 
nences near this, overlooking the Hudson. Of his success in 
forming a plan for this purpose, and its claim on the public, I 
will elsewhere speak — confining my present letter to the 
excursion. 

Mr. C is the tiller of the soil of a farm, as well as of the 

souls of a congregation, and drove round, for me, at seven in the 
morning, with a very spirited pair of horses, in his open wagon. 
The road we were to travel was mpre rough than new — its most 
frequent traveller, at one time, having been General Washington 
— and the mountain stream, along whose course it makes its first 
mile or two of ascent, is still called " Continental Brook," after 
the troops who often tracked it. Any soft part that there might 
ever have been to the road, had been washed out by the heavy 
rains. Indeed, I doubt whether we touched zarth after the first 
half hour — the wheels simply banging from rock to rock, with 
never a moment to catch breath between. The scenery behind 
us, as we ascended, grew, at every step, more extended and 
beautiful, however. Leaving my friend to keep his horses from 
falling backwards over us, I turned about, and braced my feet 
against the rear-board of the wagon — (almost standing erect 
upon it, part of the time) — to enjoy the prospect as well as was 
permitted by the venerable stones which had jolted the Saviour 
of his country The Hudson, thence, looked less like a river 
than a lake, small, and with its banks sprinkled with villages 



148 BLACK ROCK. 



We seemed to be climbing up the side of a huge bowl, and the 
river was but the remaining ladle-full, " left for manners" in the 
bottom. The incompleteness of this bowl — the piece broken out 
of the side, as it were — is but the small intei-val of comparatively 
low land above Newburgh and Fishkill ; the sweep of mountains 
which encloses this loveliest of landscape amphitheatres, forming 
otherwise, a romantically Alpine circle of horizon. Of the broad 
Highland terrace between Newburgh and West Point — known as 
the townships of Cornwall and New Windsor, and extending 
back, on a high level, four' or five miles from the river to the 
base of the hills — I shall have more to say in another letter or 
two. 

Between the peaks of the half-dozen mountains clustered 
behind West Point, are table-land hollows, which give a shelf- 
like location for a farm, and in one of these we found a very 
handsome young couple, with a well-built stone house, and every 
appearance of a comfortable home and thrifty culture. A little 
way from the door lay a most beautiful and bright lake, that holds 
tbe head-waters of Buttermilk. Falls, (which you notice just be- 
low Oozzens's, in coming up the river.) The summits of " Black 
Rock" and " Sky Rock" were close by. Groshen dairies lay on 
one side, and our country's garden for soldiers on the other — th© 
Hudson on the east, and the Ramapo, farther off, on the west — 
and from hereabouts comes thunder, manufactured from the 
clouds caught in these hollows of His hand. In fair weather, 
such as we found it in, it seems a place of thin air, quite above 
newspaper level, and with no foot-print of mortal trouble or un- 
rest. They should build an Inn, on the Lake shore in this Sum- 
mit Valley, where one might come and lodge when he were tired 



HOTEL IN THE CLOUDS. 149 



of the world lower down. 1 should be a customer at least once a 
year. 

It is something to start with a down-hill, so blessing to you, 
for the present, from the regions whence such things come. 

Adieu. 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER FROM THE HIGHLANDS. 

Hudson Highlands, August — . 

Dear Morris : — Please read this letter in connection with 
the last. They are two halves of an excursion, and should, 
perhaps, have been sent to you in one ; but — like the Turkish 
Pasha with whom I once dined, on the ruins of ancient Troy, and 
who gave us a promenade in his fig-orchard betwen the courses — 
I fancy the appetite is sometimes freshened by a respite. 1 had 
made you climb with me, from the other side, to the summit of 
the mountain above West Point, and there you left me. Let ua 
see if I can interest you, to keep me company down. 

I believe I have not mentioned that the rough road we were 
tracking is the lightning turnpike from New York to Albany — 
the telegraph wires following it closely all the way. Electricity, 
(perhaps it never occurred to you,) goes as easy up hill as down 
— or, at least, T presume so, as there is no sign of " putting on 
Another horse" to take the telegraph over the mountain. The 
birds, I noticed, sit as confidingly on the wires, in these remote 
woods, as they do in the less timid atiDOsphere of the lowlands. 
tlow strange that they should feel nothiug, either of the various 



REGIO^ BEYOND FENCES. I5I 



news that passes between their toes, or of the harnessed lightning 
on which it is whipped along under them ! Of what swift 
secrets, of superior beings, are we, in our turn, unconscious ? 
Perch with reverence, my friend, on wires you do not altogether 
understand — (the Rochester knockings, for example) — remember- 
ing how unlikely one of these sparrows would be, to believe that 
news could be communicated, over a thing he could sit on as 
quietly as on the most undeniable birch twig in the wilderness. 
Catch a sparrow at believing that humbug ! 

As you see these wild mountain-tops from the Hudson, they 
do not look inhabited — but they are, even in the wildest recesses. 
There is a class of people who cannot live where there are fences, 
and yet who like liberty within reach of a dram. They must at 
least stay where a village steeple beckons them down, once a 
week, to get something to drink. Above fence level, the land, 
though " owned," is uncared for. There is no charge either for 
the logs or place to build a shanty, nor for the pasture of a cow, 
nor for the load of sticks, which, taken to the village, will swap 
for the fill of a bottle, a salt fish and a little tea. There is such 
a two-legged type of the American eagle, at every little distance 
in these cloud-capt glens, dwelling untaxed on the mountain-top 
and taking what he wants, rent-free, from the earth's surface 
about him. In the Highland region of the Hudson, sixteen miles 
by twenty-five, there are probably five hundred of these carriers- 
out of our national emblem — eagles in all their tastes, except 
fondness for drink. It was doubtless from this class that the 
" cow-boys" were formed, in the days of the Revolution, and 
indeed, we could see the home of that marauding troop, the 
mountains of the Ramapo, from the eminence we were crossing. 
Two or three weeks ago, you remember, I described my visit to 



152 SMITH'S CLOVE. 



that region. In former days, (my intelligent companion of the 
present ramble informed me), the Ramapo Valley was called 
" Smith's Clove," and it was thought by decent people to be the 
devil's own abode. The Smith after whom it was named, was 
the chief of the cow-boys, and the worst known man. It ia 
among the " old stories" of Orange county that a fellow for whom 
the people had a great dislike, though no particular crime could 
be proved against him, was adjudged, by the Selectmen, to be 
expelled from the neighbourhood. The Dutch town crier and 
constable called upon him accordingly, and informed him that he 
was to absent himself, forthwith, " from off the face of Cot 
Almighty's airth." " Off the face of God's earth !" exclaimed 
the poor fellow, " why, where is that .^" " Smith's Clove !" said 
tke constable. So that the loveliest and most picturesque sixteen 
miles of the whole track of the Erie Railroad — (through the 
Ramapo Valley, or " Smith's Clove") — is " off the face of Cot 
Almighty's airth," remember ! Whether towards heaven, or the 
other place, was not mentioned in the story ; though I have seen 
so lovely an inhabitant from thence, that I should be willing to 
take my chance at beginning there, when the world has done with 
me — taking a cottage in the shadowy vale, meantime, to pass old 
age there, and so take oblivion easy. 

School-books say that the steepest acclivities of mountains are 
towards the sea, but the one we were now descending is an 
exception. The most precipitous side, by several degrees, is 
towards Newburgh. Leaving Black Rock on our left, and Spy 
Rock on our right, we followed a winding descent, made by the 
folding of several slopes into each other, and, after a mile or two 
downwards, came suddenly upon a smooth broad road, of scientific 
construction For the remainder of the way, four miles, we 



VEILED WATERFALL. I53 

followed -the easy grade of a road laid out and built by the 
Engineers of the Military School, and — (though we had been 
jolted into a proper appetite for it, it is true) — ^we found it 
unusually delightful. With the wild mountains still completely 
enclosing us, we were entering upon a highway as well built as 
the Simplon, and with a descent so gradual as scarcely to be 
noticeable. This refinement, and the equipages we began pre- 
sently to meet — (visitors to the Point, taking their morning 
drive) — seemed strangely in contrast with what we had just left 
behind us. Those easy wheels, bearing, so gently along, the 
ladies reclining on their cushions, were a very sudden change from 
the ox-teams, struggling and toiling with their creaking axle-trees, 
which we had passed on the rocky continuation of the same 
highway a few minutes before. 

A cascade with a green veil on — really difficult to see, it is so 
shut in by the leaves of the wood — makes music for the traveller 
at about three miles from the Point. Falling fifty or sixty feet, 
it is of sufficient magnitude to deserve a name ; though, as it is 
the stream which feeds Buttermilk Palls, they would probably 
call it Cozzens-s Churn, if it were left to the Orange county 
vocabulary. We followed the course of this bright current for 
some distance, and it seemed impossible to believe that there was 
a larger river before us. The Hudson is invisible till you come 
close upon its banks, and the mountains which you see beyond it, 
look as impenetrably battlemented with precipices as those which 
frown immediately around. As you get the first view of the 
water below, it seems at a far-down subterranean depth, and a 
sloop which was just rounding Rider's wharf, had really the 
pokerish effect of some underground navigation, upon which the 
sunshine had been accidentally let in. 



J 54 WEIR THE PAINTER. 



The sudden unfolding of the panorama around the Point ia 
iiexpressiblj beautiful. The high ridge, which you have had for 
some time on your left, you find to be Crow's Nest, and a bold 
elevation on the right turns out to have been the back of 
Fort Putnam. Below lies the enchanted scene which all the 
world has been to see, and which needs no describing. We drove 
in upon the Parade-ground by the gate which Uncle Sam has 
placed across the road to remind us of his authority hereabouts, 
and we paid the toll of homage to genius which every one pays in 
passing through that gate — for "Weir's house is where a toll- 
keeper's would be, close beside it. 

And so, dear Morris, I have landed your attention safely on the 
other side of the mountain, as my skilful and Reverend friend and 
driver safely landed me. If you thank me, as cordially as I 
thanked him, I shall feel that my trouble has not been thrown 
away. Of some matters of interest that I saw at the Point, that 
day, I will perhaps, speak, in another letter. 

Yours, meantime, 

» . P. W. 



LETTER FROM THE HIGHLANDS. 

Hudson Highlands, August — , '50. 

Dear Morris : — The summer, like other promises of un- 
changing warmth, has its caprices ; and the mountain by whose 
side I sleep, and which was to wear a smile genial and babny 
through its October, shows "a cold shoulder" to-day, and gives a 
foretaste of the soured airs of its November. The old age of the 
Season, like other old age, comes soon enough, at the slowest ; 
and these premature gray skies, frowning over unmellowed fruit 
as they do, put the most amiable of pens and ink out of humour 
The forecast shadow of the letter I am about to write, looks brief 
and cold. 

" No man is so poor that he must have his pig-stye at his 
front door," says a Fourth of July Oration which you sent me 
yesterday, and, since the atmosphere is charged with a sermon, 
let me preach one to our country people on this text. In the 
excursions I have made, through Orange and Kockland counties, 
within the last month, there is but one universal feature which 
has seemed other than beautiful — but one ever recurring disgust 
— the fig-troughs invariably outside the front gates, and the 



156 CURIOUS FREEDOM OF THE ROAD. 



swine invariably kept in the public road. I say " invariably," be- 
cause the country-seats of gentlemen are almost the only excep- 
tions to this abomination. You may see traces of taste around 
the door of many a cottage and farm house — flowers in bloom, 
vine-colored porches, shrubs and neat walks, inside the fence — 
while outside the fence, strange to say, is a filthy phalanx of pigs, 
which you must charge and rout to get in. The way to the par- 
lour is through the pig-stye ! 

What is gained by giving hogs the freedom of the road, it is 
difficult to tel], for there is no waste food for them on the high- 
way. What is lost by it seems so apparent as to make the cus- 
tom a wonder, among people of any thrift or policy ; for, besides 
the constant inroads they make upon the crops, and the frequency 
of their being run over, and of their injuring children, and being 
chased and maimed by dogs, they demean the general aspect of the 
neighbourhood., and disgust those whose choice of it for a residence 
depends on the agreeableness of the impression. I would not 
mention such a subject if it were not with a hope of hastening a 
reform in the matter. The country about the Hudson, particu- 
larly, is quite too beautiful to be disfigured by such an eye-sore. 
Let me add weight to what I have said, by quoting, from the 
Fourth of July Oration I spoke of, an admirable and most truth- 
ful passage, on the duty of every citizen to embellish the neigh- 
bourhood of his residence : — 

" Every man, no matter how poor he may be, can do something towards 
making this world mor^ beautiful. He can leave behind him monuments, 
through which the grateful zephyrs shall warble his praises, long after he 
shall be sleeping in the dust. Are you a poor man, toiling hard for frugal 
fare ? You will be more than repaid for the labour that is required to keep 
the plat before your door clean and green ; and you will love your home the 
b( tter for the rose bush which blooms in the yard, looking up into your eye, 



•duty of beauty. xo/- 



as it were with gratitude, through its green leaves and blushiug fioweM. It 
was but the work of half an hour to plant it there. And many a year will 
it reward you and your wife and your children, with its smiles. A man 
cannot love a rose, without being a better man for that exercise of love. A 
child cannot prune it and water it, and watch with affection its swelling 
buds, without becoming more gentle in character, more refined in feeling, 
more docile in spirit. 

•* Walter Scott in one of his graphic descriptions, represents a Scottish 
lord, riding by the humble hut of a peasant, who is planting a tree before 
his door. He commends him for his taste exclaiming, ' When you have 
nothing better to do Jock, be aye sticking out a tree Jock, 'twill grow when 
you're asleep Jock.' There is no little philosophy in this declaration. You 
plant a tree — give it tliat gentle nurturing which it may for a short time 
need, and it will ever after reward you with its foliage and shade. You 
sleep, and it steadily advances, in its growth, to the perfection of beauty. 
You go away for months, perhaps for years, and it forgets not to grow, and 
on your return your heart is gladdened by its fair proportions. 

" And a tree is property. Who will not give a few dollars more for a 
farm house, beneath the shade of whose ornamental trees his children caa 
play, or his cattle slumber in the noon-tide heat ? And how can the occu- 
pant of a village house make a better investment of a few dollars, than in 
attaching to his house those ornaments which every man of taste so eagerly 
covets ? A few green sods will change an unsightly sand bank into beauty, 
where the eye may rest wit-h pleasure and where the feet may love to lin- 
ger. A few hours' work, in a spring morning, may give to your home the 
richest ornaments a home can have, tempering the fierce blaze of the 
summer's sun, and breaking up the fury of the winter's storm. 

" Property is worth more in a beautiful, well-shaded village, than on a 
l)leak, sunburnt, unsightly plain. He who has no regard for the appearance 
of his own premises^ not only sinks the value of his own property, but also 
ginks the value of the property of his neighbours. No one likes to live in the sight 
of ugliness. On the other hand, he who makes his own home attractive, 
contributes to the rising value of all the region around him. He is thus 
ti public benefactor contributing not merely to the gratification of lh«» taste 



158 HINT IN AN ORATION. 



of those who look upon his improvements, but adding to the real marketable 
value of the property in his vicinity. 

" Do not think that we are here urging expense upon those who are ill 
able to afford it. No man is so poor but that he can have a flowering shrub 
in his yard. No man is so poor, but that he can plant a few trees before his 
dwelling. No man is so poor, that he must have his pig-stye at his front door. 
We only contend that every man should exercise that taste which God has 
given to every man. And though we may not be able to vie with the rich 
in the grandeur of our dwellings, the lowliest cottage may be embellished 
with loveliness, and the hand of industry and of neatness may make it a 
home full of attractions. Let there once be formed, in the heart of man, an 
appreciation of the beautiful and the work is done. Year after year, with 
no additional expense, the scene around him will be assuming new aspects 
of Taeauty. 

" Say not, I am not the owner of house or lands and therefore I have 
nothing to do. All are but tenants at will. We are all soon to leave, to re- 
turn no more. Wherever you dwell, even if it be in your own hired house 
but one short year, be sure and leave your impress behind you — bi; sure and 
leave some memorial that you have been there. The benevolent man will 
love to- plant a tree, beneath whose shade the children of strangers are to 
play. It does the heart good to sow the seed, when it is known that other 
lips than yours shall eat the fruit. 

" Neither think that this is a question without its moral issues. The love 
of home, is one of the surest safeguards of human virtue. And he who 
makes home so pleasant that his children love it, that in all the wan- 
derings of subsequent lite they turn to it with delight, does very much to 
guide their steps away from all the haunts of dissipation, and to form in 
them a taste for those joys which are mosl ennobling." 

The author of this is the Kev. John Abbott, Principal of one 
of the best institutions in this country, and a man of admirably 
practical, elevated and sound mind. The Oration was delivered 
at Farmington Falls, and the other portions of it are well worthy 
of reproduction, had you room. 



MR. ABBOTT. 159 



Just enougli of an invalid to be very much " under the 
weather," as I am, dear Morris, I must break oJGc with thus 
much of a letter for this week, and hope for more sunshine and a 
quicke-. pulse when 1 next write to you. 

Yours, &c., 

N. P. W. 



OLD WHITE! AND GENERAL TAYLOR. 

We were standing at the corner of President Square, in Wash- 
ington, the other day — literally brought to a stand-still by the 
heavenly beauty of the weather — when a loose horse trotted 
leisurely by us in the open street, and we found ourself expand- 
ing towards him, in sympathetic recognition of the similarity of 
our respective happiness. " There are two of us out of harness, 
to-day," we mentally said — " God bless you, old brother workey, 
and may you enjoy, as I do, this delicious sunshine and its heav- 
enly nothings-to-do !" On he trotted toward the President's 
gate, and, halting a little before the entrance, he seemed hesitat- 
ing between perfect liberty to go in or stay out — when it sud- 
denly occurred to U5 that our fellow idler might not be, after all, 
the '^ private individual" for whom we had fancied our sympathy 
to be rather a condescension than otherwise ! What if it should 
be " Old Whitey," — reposing on his laurels ! 

A moment's look, up and down the pave in front of the Presi- 
dent's mansion, corroborated the conjecture. There were, per- 
haps, twenty persons in sight, and, among them, we recognized 
one of the Cabinet Secretaries, a venerable Auditor, the Austrian 
Charge, and two of those un-anxious and yet responsible-looking 



TAYLOR'S CHARGER. 161 



persons whom you know to be " Members" and not office-seekers 
— and — (curious to see) — all eyes were fixed, not upon the dis- 
tinguished foreigner, not on the Honorable officials, not on the 
Honorable members, not on an unharnessed and loose Editor of 
the Home Journal — but, on the unharnessed and loose white 
horse ! 

We felt the smoke of Buena Vista and Resaca de la Palma, of 
Palo Alto and Monterey, pushing us toward the old cannon-proof 
charger. He went smelling about the edges of the sidewalk — 
wondering, probably, at such warm weather and no grass — and 
we crossed over to have a nearer look at him, with a feeling that 
the glory was not all taken from his back with the saddle and 
holsters. " Old Whitey'' is a compact, hardy, well proportioned 
animal, less of a battle-steed, in appearance, than of the style 
usually defined by the phrase " family-horse j" slightly knock- 
kneed, and with a tail (I afterwards learned) very much thinned 
by the numerous applications for a " hair of him for memory." 
He had evidently been long untouched with a currycomb, and 
(like other celebrities for want of an occasional rubbing down) 
there was a little too much of himself in his exterior — the name 
of "old Whitey," indeed, hardly describing with fidelity a coat 
so matted and yellow. But, remembering the beatings of the 
great heart he had borne upon his back — the anxieties, the ener- 
gies, the defiances of danger, the iron impulses to duty, the 
thrills of chivalric triumphs, and the sad turnings of the rein to 
see brothers in arms laid in the graves of the battle-field — remem- 
bering all that has betn thought and felt, in the saddle which that 
horse was wont to wear — it was impossible to look upon him 
without a throb in the throat — one of those unbidden and unrea- 
soning tear-throbs, that seem to delight in paying tribute, out of 



162 ' 'ROUGH AND READY. 



time and unexacted, to trifles tbat have been belongings of glory. 
We saw General Taylor himself, for the first time, the next day 
— ^with more thought and reverence of course, than had been 
awakened by looking upon his horse — ^but with not half the 
emotion. 

The " hero-President" has been more truthfully described 
than any man we ever read much of before seeing. One who had 
not learned how extremes touch, in manners — the most courtly 
polish and the most absolute simplicity — might be surprised, only, 
with that complete putting of every one in his presence at ease, 
which is looked upon in England as the result of high breeding ; 
and which General Taylor's manners effect, without the slightest 
thought given to the matter, apparently, and with the fullest pre- 
servation of dignity. " Rough and Ready" — in this way — an 
English Duke would be, as well ; and, by the way, his readiness 
is of a simplicity and genuineness which it is wonderful indeed to 
find so high on the ladder of preferment ! There were but six or 
eight persons in the room, when the party we accompanied 
were presented to the President ; and the conversation, for the 
ten minutes we were there, was entirely unstudied, and between 
himself and the ladies only. But we should have been anywhere 
struck with the instant directness, obviousness, and prompt and 
close-hitting immediateness, with which he invariably replied to 
what was said. Let it be ever so mere a trifle, the return 
thought was from the next link of association. Most great men, 
diplomatists and politicians particularly, go " about the bush" a 
little, for a reply to a remark, omitting the more obvious and 
simpler answer it might suggest, for the sake, perhaps, of an ap- 
pearance of seeing more scope in the bearing of the matter. But 
Taylor — (we thought we could make certain, even from these few 



TAYLOR'S MANNERS. 163 



brief moments of observation) — has no dread of your seeing his 
mind exactly as it works ; and has no care, whatever, except to 
think and speak truthfully what comes first, regardless of any 
policy, or management of its impression on the listener. The 
key of his voice, at the same time, is that of thorough frankness, 
good humour and unconsciousness of observation, while his smile 
is easy and habitual. The grace with which these out-of-door 
characteristics accompany a mouth of such indomitable resolution 
and an eye of such searching and inevitable keenness, explains, 
perhaps, the secret of the affection that is so well known to 
have been mingled with the confiding devotion felt for him 
throughoiit the army. It is impossible to look upon the old hero, 
we should say, without loving and believing in him.* 

* General Taylor's death followed very closely upon the period when this 
was written 



THE LATE PRESIDENT. 

Q-ENERAL Taylor's life has one most striking lesson. He 
ascended to the highest honour of his country, hy the honest 
staircase of unobtrusive duty^ and not by the outside ladder of 
hrilliant and crafty ambition. Where and what he was, till 
Glory called him, is the instructive portion of his history. The 
great deeds he was found ready for — when need came — take 
their best lustre, it seems to us, from the patient heroism with 
which, in a remoter and lesser sphere, he equally " endeavoured 
to do his duty." 

From the great anthem of eulogy and mourning, pealing forth, 
since his death, in every shape of utterance, it seems to us that 
this one note should be the dwelt-upon and eternal echo — glory 

SOUGHT HIM, HE SOUGHT NOT GLORY. In this distinction 

could it but be made necessary to American greatness — there 
would be a " divinity to hedge about" the Presidents of our 
country, which would lift them far above kings ; while, in it, at 
the same time, would live a principle of incalculable security to 
our institutions. 

There seems to have been a design of Providence in the whole 
fitness of Taylor's character to the times he fell on. The passion 



TAYLOR'S GUIDING-STAR. 165 



for military glory, with which the nostrils of our national 
prosperity were inflated at the time of the conquest of Mexico, 
called for a hero — but never before was there such need that it 
should be a hero who could govern himself. The moderation of 
Taylor has been of more use to us than his victories. His 
common sense has been mightier than his sword. 

The dying words of the gi-eat and good man : — " I have 
ENDEAVOURED TO DO MY duty" — Contain a biography of more 
worth than Napoleon's ; but they seem to us of higher purport 
than to be weighed against another man's glory. They contain 
the law of conduct of which our country has most need to be 
kept in mind. Sound judgment and high principle are wanted 
at the helm of State, and for these qualities, more than for 
brilliant genius and practised policy, we should look, in the men 
to govern us. 

Honour to the ashes of Taylor ! But let the urn which 
preserves his memory be the adoption of his dying words as a 
standard ; for, no measure is so fitting, for those who are to take 
his place, as that by which he measured his owu life in leaving 

it THE ENDEAVOUR TO DO HIS DUTY ! 



EDAVARD EVERETT. 

That " the root of a great name Is in the dead body," is one 
of those old sayings based upon a principle of human nature, and 
likely to be always true in some variable degree ; but, either it is 
less true in proportion as the world civilizes, or, else, among the 
changes which are classed as "things the age is ready for," is a 
greater liberality as to the pre-payment of posthumous fame — a 
rebuking of envy, jealousy and ungenerous interpretation — in 
short, a rendering of more justice, than of old, to living greatness. 
We have remarked instances of this, within the last ten years, 
which could not formerly have occurred — Sir Robert Peel, 
Wordsworth and Hallam, in England, for instance, and Webster, 
Everett, Irving and Bryant in our own country — all of whom 
have been nearly as much honoured in life as they could be, or 
would justly be, in death. 

Finding upon our table, the two volumes of "Everett's Ora- 
tions," just published by Little and Browu, of Boston, we felt 
ourself summoned to the bar of conscience, (as an Editor must 
ever be when about to speak of one to whose imprint of fame he 
serves as the ink,) and we were compelled, as we ever are before 
thi? tribunal, to answer the question partly answered in the para- 



MR. EVERETT'S POSITION. 167 



graph above — is he appreciated by bis contemporaries, or is tbere 
a tacit appreciation in the higher sanctuaries of public opinion, to 
which you are bound, by the possession of a journal, to give 
voice .'' 

Mr. Everett has had the tribute of public honours in singular 
profusion and variety. After attaining the summit of distinction 
for learning, as Professor of the University, and for pulpit elo- 
quence, as a clergyman, he successively filled the offices of Mem- 
ber of Congress, Governor of his State, Foreign Minister and 
President of Harvard College, with lesser appointments and 
honours, in great number, which could only be given to the coun- 
try's most finished orator and surest master of public occasion. 
Just in the prime of a statesman's life — at the age when a states- 
man's career of patriotic service oftenest begins — he has more be- 
hind him than was ever won, of American distinction, in the same 
time ; and, with his varied acquirements and experience, he has 
more material for greatness hereafter than was ever possessed, in 
this country, so on the threshold of a meridian. This is generally 
understood, and so certain to be expressed, where Mr. Everett is 
spoken of, that, taken in connection with the respect and admi- 
ration always paid him, posthumous fame could scarcely honour 
him more. 

We were strongly impressed, the last time we were under the 
spell of Mr. Everett's eloquence, with the need of such men that 
a Republic has — the need, in fact, that there would seem to be, 
of a lofty order of professed public orators, who, by mingled wis- 
dom and eloquence, could minister to the public mind as did the 
oracles of old, or the prophets of Scripture. Take one of Mr. 
Everett's Orations, for instance, and see what was required, for 
its preparation, and its adaptedness to the occasion on which it 



168 QUALITIES OF AN ORATOR. 



was delivered ! The most splendid structure of the architect ia 
not more heaped in confusion when the stones and mortar are 
first brought together, than are the events and associations from 
which the Orator must rear his deed-enshrining fabric. It re- 
quires first that difficult and statesmanlike faculty of generaliza- 
tion — of realizing the classic absurdity, that is to say, of judging 
of a house by a specimen of a brick — of taking the relevant and 
irrelevant events of a period, and building them into the century 
outline to which they belong. It requires a judgment capable of 
weighing any human action, seeing its motive and bearings, and 
anticipating the verdict which will be passed upon it in history. 
It requires both the power of seeing events with the philosopher's 
perspective of distance and of comprehending familiarly the char- 
acter and want of the present hour — which he is called upon, 
with the mystery he thus reads, to enlighten and instruct. It 
requires profound scholarship, political sagacity, generous and 
bold enthusiasm, views too liberal for one sect or one party, great 
personal respectability, and the control of that sublimity of human 
speech which we call eloquence. The gifts and making of such 
men, are the gifts and making of a prophet ; and, like prophets, 
they might profitably be set apart, and, sacred from other occu- 
pation, be kept for these high duties only. 

Mr. Everett has always seemed to us the ideal of such an ora- 
tor as we describe. He has lived up to a consciousness of such a 
mission, apparently. The public understands this. Who would 
doubt, that, for any emergency, of public question, duty, or trust, 
he would exercise the highest human intelligence, and bring to 
bear upon it every existing light of precedent, policy and fore- 
seen result ? 

Yours, &o. 



EMERSON. 

The announcement that Mr. Emerson was to lecture at the 
Mercantile Library, a few evenings since, was a torpedo touch, 
even to that most exhausted and torpid thing on earth, editorial 
curiosity — for, though the impregnator of a whole cycle of Boston 
mind, and the father of thousands of lesser Emersons, he is the 
most unapproachably original and distinct monotype of our day ; 
and, strange to say, we had never, to the best of our knowledge, 
laid eyes upon him. For this unaccountable want of recognition 
and signification, living in the same town, as we were, when 
Emerson first began to preach and write, and never taking the 
trouble to go and behold him as a prophet, we must own to tardy 
perceptions — but it was doubtless due to his belonging to a sect 
which we supposed had but one relish, and which led us to dismiss 
what we heard of him, of course, with the idea that he was but a 
Qew addition to the prevailing Boston beverage of Channing-and- 
water. 

The eye sometimes reverses, and always more or less qualifies, 

the judgment formed without its aid ; and we were very much 

disappointed, on arriving at the Hall, to find the place crowded, 

and no chance of a near view of the speaker. The only foothold 
8 



170 EMERSON AS A BOY. 



to be had, was up against the farthest wall ; and a row of 
unsheltered gas-lights blazed between us and the pulpit, with one 
at either ear-tip of the occupant, drowning the expression of his 
face completely in the intense light a little behind it. To look 
at him at all, was to do so with needles through the eyes, and we 
take the trouble to define this, by way of a general protest against 
the unshaded gas-burners of the Tabernacle, Stuyvesant Institute, 
and other public rooms — where an ophthalmia is very likely to be 
added to the bad air and hard seats with which the " evening's 
entertainment" is presented.' 

The single look we were enabled to give Mr. Emerson, as the 
applause announced that he had come into the pulpit, revealed to 
us that it was a man we had seen a thousand times, and with 
whose face our memory was familiar ; though, in the sidewalk 
portrait-taking by which we had treasured his physiognomy, there 
was so little resemblance to the portrait taken from reading him, 
that we should never have put the two together, probably, except 
by personal identification. We remember him perfectly, as a 
boy whom we used to see playing about Chauncey Place and 
Summer-street — one of those pale little moral-sublimes with their 
shirt collars turned over, who are recognized by Boston school- 
boys as having " fathers that are Unitarians" — and though he 
came to his first short hair about the time that we came to our 
first tail-coat, six or eight years behind us, we have never lost 
sight of him. In the visits we have made to Boston, of late 
years, we have seen him in the street and remembered having 
always seen him as a boy — very little suspecting that there 
walked, in a form long familiar, the deity of an intellectual altar, 
upon which, at that moment, burned a fire in our bosom. 
' Emerson's voice is up to his reputation. It has a curious' 



IMPRESSION THROUGETeYE OR EAR. 171 



contradiction, which we tried in vain to analyze satisfactorily— 
an outwardly repellant and inwardly reverential mingling of 
qualities, which a musical composer would despair of blending 
into one. It bespeaks a life that is half contempt, half adoring 
recognition, and very little between. But it is noble, altogether 
And what seems strange is to hear such a voice proceeding from 
such a body. It is a voice with shoulders in it, which he haa 
not — with lungs in it far larger than his — with a walk in it which 
the public never see — with a fist in it, which his own hand never 
gave hiia the model for — and with a gentleman in it, which his 
parochial and " bare necessaries-of-life" sort of exterior, gives no 
other betrayal of. We can imagine nothing in nature — (which 
seems, too, to have a type for everything) — like the want of 
correspondence between the Emerson that goes in at the eye, and 
the Emerson that goes in at the ear. "We speak, (as we 
explained,) without having had au opportunity to study his face — 
acquaintance with features, as every body knows, being like the 
peeling of an artichoke, and the core, of a face, to those who know 
it, being very unlike the eight or ten outside folds that stop the 
eye in the beginning. But a heavy and vase-like blossom of a 
magnolia, with fragrance enough to perfume a whole wilderness, 
which should be lifted by a whirlwind and dropped into a branch 
of an aspen, would not seem more as if it never could have grown 
there, than Emerson's voice seems inspired and foreign to his 1 
visible and natural body. Indeed, (to use one of his own ' 
similitudes,) his body seems " never to have broken the umbilical 
cord" which held it to Boston, while his soul has sprung to the 
adult stature of a child of the universe, and his yoice is the 
utterance of the soul only. It is one of his fine remarks, that 
" it makes a great difference to the force of any sentence whether 



172 KEY TO STYLE. 



a niian is behind it or no" — but, without his voice to make the 
ear stand surety for his value, the eye would look for the first 
time on Emerson and protest his draft on admiration, as not 
" payable at sight." 

The first twenty sentences, which we heard, betrayed one of 
the smaller levers of Emerson's power of style, which we had not 
« detected in reading him. He works with surprises. A man who 
should make a visit of charity, and, after expressing all proper 
sympathy, should bid adieu to the poor woman, leaving her very 
grateful for his kind feelings, but should suddenly return, after 
shutting the door, and give her a guinea, would produce just the 
efiect of his most electric sentences. You do not observe it in 
reading, because you withhold the emphasis till you come to the 
key-word. But, in delivery, his cadences tell you that the 
meaning is given, and the interest of the sentence all over, 
when— flash ! — comes a single word or phrase, like lightning 
after listened-out thunder, and illuminates, with astonishing 
vividness, the cloud you have striven to see into. We can give, 
perhaps, a partial exemplification of it, by a description rather 
than a quotation of a droll and graphic sketch, which he drew in 
his lecture, of his first impression of Englishmen on the road. 
The audience had already laughed in two or three places, and — 
with the intention to be longer attended to, on that point, quite 
gone out of his eyes — he was fumbling with his manuscript to 
look for the next head — when the closing word, just audible, 
threw us all into a fit of laughter. " The Englishman," (if we 
may paraphrase rather than quote, for it is impossible to recal the 
subtle collocation of his words,) " dresses to please himself. He 
puts on as many coats, trowsers and wrappers as he likes, and, 
while he respects others' rights, is unaffected by, and unconscious 



EXPONENT THOUGHTS. 173 



of the observation of those around him. He is an island, as England 
is. He is a bulky and sturdy mass, with his clothes built up 
about his body, and he lives in, thinks in, and speaks from, his 

building." To the listener, this last word, tyhich was dug 

out, smelted, coined and put away to be produced and used with 
cautious and artistic effectiveness, seems an accident of that 
moment's suggestion — as new a thing to the orator as to himself, 
and which he came very near not hearing, as it came very near 
not being said. 

We are gossiping only — not trying to estimate or criticise. 
What our readers might not otherwise get at, is what we aim to 
give — in this as in most else that we describe editorially. 
Emerson is too great a man to be easily or triflingly appreciated. 
The more studied as well as more properly deferential views which 
we entertain, of his nature and power, we leave unexpressed, 
because others are likely to do it better (as is shown in another 
column) and because we write, stam in uno pede, and can let the 
ink dry on nothing. We can only say, of this Lecture on 
England, that it was, as all is which he does, a compact mass of 
the exponents of far-reaching thoughts — stars which are the 
pole-points of universes beyond — and, at each close of a sentence, 
one wanted to stop and wonder at that thought, before being 
hurried to the next. He is a suggestive, direction-giving, soul- 
fathoming mind, and we are glad there are not more such. A 
few Emersons would make the every-day work of one's mind 
intolerable. 

Let us close by giving our readers an advance-taste of a grand 
similitude with which he closed his Lecture, and which we see is 
not given in the newspaper reports of it. It is one of those 
Titanic thoughts that would alone make a reputation, and a 



174 ENGLAND'S BANYAN. 



prophetic metaphor of England's power, for which Victoria 
should name one of her annual babies Emerson. After some 
very bold and fearless comment on the croaking that predicts the 
speedy downfall of England, he compared her to the hamyan tree, 
which, it will be remembered, sends up shoots from its roots that 
become, themselves, huge trunks of parent vegetation. " She 
has planted herself on that little island," he said, " like the 
banyan tree, and her roots have spread under the sea, and come up 
on far away continents .and in every quarter of the world, 
flowering with her language and laws, and forever perpetuating 
her, though the first trunk dismember and perish." In his own 
words, this thought will have as banyan an eternity as England. 



SECOND LOOK AT EMERSON. • 

Emerson handles things without gloves, as everybody knows. 
He has climbed above the atmosphere of this world and kicked 
away the ladder — holding no deferential communication, that 
is to say, with any of the intermediate ladder-rounds or de- 
grees of goodness. If he descends at all, it is quite to the 
ground, otherwise he is out of reach — up with the Saviour or 
down with Lazarus and his sores. We intended, in the present 
number of our paper, to have given a careful illustration of this — 
in some remarks upon Mr. Emerson's last lecture and his works — 
but head and hand out of condition for a few days, has prevented 
this, as it will account, (to subscribers and correspondents,) for 
other short-comings of our bespoken time and pen. We only 
wish, just now, to record, before we lose hold of it, an instance of 
the boldness with which Mr. Emerson speaks, from his super 
atmospheric elevation — instructing our readers, at the same time, 
as to his view of the principle of Socialism, now so vigorously at 
work among us. 

As among the " Signs of the Times" (which formed the subject 
of his Lecture) he spoke with reverential admiration of the 
A-postleships of Fourier and Owen — ^lauding those reformers so 



17e SOCIALISM. 



highly, indeed, as to draw a murmur of satisfaction from the 
Listen-to-reason-do{n which formed the greater part of his 
audience, and hisses from the few believers in things as they are, 
who had been brought thither by curiosity. Of the main Socialist 
aim, to distribute the means of human happiness more equally, he 
apparently could not speak admiringly enough — but he scouted, 
very emphatically, the possibility of any general community of 
existence, as a destruction of the poetry of individual and family 
separation, and as altogether " culinary and mean." Level all 
men, he said, and they would commence to unequalize to-morrow 
— those who had once got the upper hand in wealth and power 
being able and likely to get it again. The similitude with which 
he illustrated the impossibility of commonizing and equalizing 
great men, as well as the less gifted and ordinary, will be enough 
to complete the re£fder's idea of Emerson's extent of belief in 
Socialism, while at the same time it makes an easily remembered 
frame on which to embroider the stray threads of its argument 
and progress. " Spoons and skimmers," said he, " you can 
make lie undistinguishably together — but vases and statues 
require each a pedestal for itself." ■ 

We went early, to get a seat where we could see Emerson, and 
were struck with the character of his audience, most of whom we 
knew by repute. Wo doubt whether any man, but this lecturer, 
could draw together so varied an assemblage, and yet probably 
none were there who had not a point of contact with the mind 
they came to enjoy. Mr. Charles King was there, with his 
combined likeness to Aristotle and Epicurus ; Mrs. Kirkland, with 
her fine-chiselled aristocratic features and warm bright eye ; Mr. 
Andrew Jackson Davis, the Revelations-man, looking as if 
thought had never left a foot-print on his apprentice face ; Miss 



OVER-SAYING. 177 



Sedgwick, with thought and care stranded on the beach of her 
countenance by the ebb of youth ; Mr. G-reeley, with his face 
fenced in by regularity and culture, while the rest of him is left 
" in open common ;" half a dozen of the men who live for 
Committees and influence ; six or eight of the artists who are 
painting away the time tUl the millennium comes; several 
unappreciated poets ; one or two strong-minded wealthy men who 
are laying up a reserve of intellect against what Capt. Cuttle 
calls a " rewarse" ; and, as well as we could see, few or no 
ordinary people. If Emerson would come to New York, and 
invite just that audience to gather around him and form a 
congregation of Listeners-to-reason, with or without pulpit, we 
are very sure that he might become the centre of a very well- 
chosen society — form it into a club or gather it around a pulpit. 
Either way. New York is the place for him, we think. 

That " critics," as Sir Henry Wotton said, " are brushers of 
noblemen's clothes," one feels very sensibly and reprovingly, in 
turning a pen to write any comment on Emerson. He says so 
•oany wonderful, and wonderfully true and good things, in one 
of his Delphic lectures, that, to find any fault with him, seems 
like measuring thunder by its echo down a back alley. Yet, with 
all his inspired intuition, he is not careful enough not to over-say 
things. To point an antithesis, he will put, into his unforgetable 
words, that which leaves mistiust in the ear when the music stops 
tingling. One feels vexed, not that he should have been careless 
enough to do what he likes, being Emerson, but that there should 
have been a miscellaneous audience there, to hear and remember 
it against him. 

Yet we never saw a more intellectually picked audience than 



178 MENTAL CENTURIONS. 



our Prophet of the Intuitive draws together. From the great 
miscellany of New York they come selectively out, like steel 
filings out of a handfull of sand to a magnet. It would be worth 
while to induce such nucleal men to lecture in large cities, if only 
to discover what particles belong to that shape of crystal — what 
beads fit together on one string — how the partakers of one level 
of intellect are scattered through the different levels of politics, 
religion and society. We should very much like a catalogue of 
Emerson's audiences, as minds which you could address, like the 
centurions of the Army of Opinion, with reasons, to be passed by 
them to the multitude in the shape of commands. 

We made several memoranda of thoughts in Emerson's lecture 
with which to gem a paragraph for our readers, but we find that 
we should do injustice to them without giving the surroundings, 
and we will wait till they are published, (as we trust these lec- 
tures soon will be,) and give them in the safer shape of a column 
of " Spice Islands." 



CALHOUN AND BENTON. 

Those who take no part in politics, or who look on the two 
opposing parties as upon two sides of a pyramid — correcting each 
other's leanings, and holding the strength of the country between 
them — are still interested sometimes to know the shape in which 
the corner-stones are hewn — the grain and mark from nature 
with which eminent men are visible to their fellows. The two 
great Southern Democrats, Calhoun and Benton, were figuring in 
strong relief recently in the Senate, and, in a memorandum book, 
wherein we record any chance approach of ours to the personal 
orbit of a star, we put ink on the impressions we received of these 
two, in a week's observation, and herewith we present them to 
our readers — adding only the conjunctions and prepositions, left 
out, so universally, in things written to be read when one is be- 
yond responsibilities of grammar. 

Benton is a caricature likeness of Louis Philippe — ^the same 
rotundity, the same pear-shaped head, and about the same 
stature. The physical expression of his face predominates. His 
lower features are drilled into imperturbable suavity, while the 
eye, that undrillable tale-teller, twinkles of inward slyness as a 
burning lamp-wick does of oil He is a laborious builder-up of 



i80 BENTON. 

himself — acting by syllogistic forecast, never by impulses. He ia 
pompously polite, and never abroad -without " Executive" man- 
ners. He has made up his mind that oratory, if not a national 
weakness, is an un-Presidential accomplishment, and he delivers 
himself in the Senate with a subdued voice, like a judge deciding 
upon a cause which the other Senators had only argued. He 
wears an ample blue cloak, and a broad-brimmed hat with a high 
crown, and lives, moves, and has his being, in a faith in himself 
which will remove mountains of credulity. Though representing 
a State two thousand miles off, he resides regularly at "Washing- 
ton, drawing a handsome income from his allowance of mileage, 
and paying rare and brief visits to his constituency, whose votes 
he has retained for more than twenty years — an unaccountable 
exception to the anti-conservative rotation of the country's gifts 
of oflSce. 

Mr. Calhoun lives in his mind, and puts a sort of bathing- 
dress value on his body. There is a temporary-looking tuck 
away of his beard and hair, as if they would presently be better 
combed in another place — mouth and eyes kept clear, only, for a 
brief life-swim in the ocean of politics. He is taU, hollow- 
chested, and emaciated, and both face and figure are concave, 
with the student's bend forward. He smiles easily when spoken 
to — indeed with rather a simple facility — though, in longer con- 
versation, he gives his eye to the speaker, barely in recognition 
of an idea — with a most " verbum sap^^ withdrawal from talka- 
tiveness. When speaking in the Senate he is a very startling 
looking man. His skin lies sallow and loose on the bold frame 
of his face — his stiff gray hair spreads off from rather a low fore- 
head with the semicircular radiation of the smoke from a wheel of 
fireworks just come to a stand still — the profuse masses of white 



CALHOUN. 181 



beard in his throat catch the eye like the smoulder of a fire tinder 
his chin — and his eyes, bright as coals, move with jumps, as if 
he thought in electric leaps from one idea to another. He 
dresses carelessly, walks the street absent-mindedly, and is 
treated with the most marked personal respect and involuntary 
deference, by his brother senators and the diplomatists of "Wash- 
ington. He is a great man — probably an ambitious one — ^but'in 
the Senate, a few days since, he indignantly denied the charge of 
" making tracks" for the' Presidency. That high horse has been 
so " promiscuously" ridden of late, that he would doubtless look 
twice at the stirrups before taking the saddle with its associations. 



K 



MRS. FANNY KEMBLE BUTLER. 

We doubt whether we were ever present at a performance, the 
interest of which was so difficult to analyze, as the one of Mrs. 
Butler's Readings which we have had the fortunate leisure to at- 
tend. The curiosity to see the lady whose private life has so 
freely fed the appetite for gossip through the public papers, 
would account for But a small portion of it. The attention 
which she commanded, to the last syllable of the play from 
which she read, was of the most abstract and eager intensity — 
the silence being so absolute that the conversation of the hack- 
men at the distant street door in Broadway was an annoying in- 
terruption. Yet, mere rhetorical command of an audience it was 
not, either ; for the play was read with singularly little variety of 
dramatic expression, and many passages, it seemed to us, quite 
awry from the obvious mood and meaning of the character repre- 
seniea. 

Mrs. Butler entered, from the screen near her desk, with a 
degree of agitation which we were not prepared to expect, in one 
who had been so much before the public. Before sitting, she 
with difficulty controlled her breath sufficiently to say, " I shall 
have the honor of reading Macbeth to you," — a prepared intro- 



PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 183 



ductory speech, the brief contemptuousness of which was cor- 
roborated, by a movement whose careless inelegance would other- 
wise have been un-instinctive, viz. : — putting her foot out behind 
and drawing her chair under her with her heel. The powerful 
struggle to assume ease was a curiously fine display of self-wrest- 
ling, however, and, to the indifferent reading of the dramatis per- 
soncB which accompanied it, the audience were breathlessly atten- 
tive. The lecturess was in a^ full evening dress of white, very 
elegantly made and worn, and the arrangement of her simply 
knotted hair, showing her well-shaped head to great advantage, 
could not have been improved, even in the sketch of a Lawrence. 
Our distant readers may perhaps like to know, that Mrs. Butler 
is rather under the middle size, extremely robust in shoulders, 
though not large in the waist, with a powerfully muscular arm, 
features small and regularly compact, the finest possible teeth, 
dark and Siddons-like eyes, and lips expressive of little but 
antagonism and resolution. 

The witch Scenes, in the first Act, were finely read, and the 
development they made, of the reader's tone of voice and com- 
pleteness of enunciation, was very satisfactory. A shade nearer 
to a masculine voice than a proper contralto, Mrs. Butler's tones 
are still richly mellow, and nothing could well, be more admirably 
beautiful than her articulation and pronunciation of the English 
language. In her subsequent distribution of force and emphasis 
to the speeches of the different characters, there was, we thought, 
the constantly recurring error of giving energy where none was 
intended by the author. Lady Macbeth's welcome to the guests 
at the banquet, was expressed more like a defiance than a wel- 
come, for instance, and Macbeth's relenting declaration, 



194 SWEET .READING. 



" I dare do all that may become a man , 
Who dares do more, is none," 

was thundered at the top of the reader's voice, like an argument 
in a passion 

The exquisite passages of poetry with which this grand play 
abounds, however, seemed well recognized by Mrs. Butler, and 
her reading of two or three of them, though they were not the 
efforts upon which she herself set any pains or value, made a 
music in our ear that we shall not readily forget. Thus, in the 
first Act : — 

Duncan. — This castle has a pleasant seat ; the air 

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 

Unto our gentle senses. 
Banquo. — This guest of summer 

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 

By his loved mansionry, that heaven's breath 

Sniells wooingly here ; no jutty, frieze. 

Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird 

Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : 

Where they most breed and haunt I have observed 

The air is delicate. 

The dainty elegance with which Duncan and Banquo said these 
sweet words, through Mrs. Butler's lips, made us feel the influ- 
ence of their death, throughout the play, as we had never felt it 
before. And the following passages were read with a veritable 
deliciousness : 

Macbeth. — Hovi' does your patient, Doctor ? 
Doctor. — Not so sick, my lord. 

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies 

That keep her from her rest. 
Macbeth. — Cure her of that : 



LADY MACBETH. 185 



Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased ; 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ; 

Raze out the written trouhles of the brain ; 

And with some sweet oblivious antidote, 

Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff 

Which weighs upon the heart ? 
Doctor. — Therein the patient 

Must minister to himself. 
Macbeth. — Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. 

And these lines : — 

Malcom. — What, man ! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows : 

Give sorrow words : the grief that does not speak 

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. 
Macduff. — My children, too ? 
Malcom. — Wife, children, seivanls, all. 
Macduff. — He has no children. All my pretty ones ? 

Did you say all ? hell-kite ! all? 

What all my pretty chickens and their dam 

At one fell swoon ? 
Malcmn. — Dispute it like a man. 
Macduff. — I shall do so : 

But I must also feel it as a man. 

The speeches of Lady Macbeth were delivered from a concep- 
tion probably intensified for the stage, and were accordingly 
suited to the demand of " the groundlings" for violence. The 
following passage was given with a sort of frantic fury which did 
not express what it is — a self-possessed purpose of stimulating 
Macbeth to the murder : — 

Lady Macbeth. — When you durst do it, then you were a man ; 
And, to be more than what you were, you would 
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both : 



186 MAGNETIC SUPERIORITY. 



They have made themselves, and that their fitness now. 

Does unmake you. I have given suck ; and know 

How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me : 

I would, while it was smiling in my face, 

Have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums. 

And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn 

As you have done to this. 
Macbeth. — If we should fail — 
Lady Macbeth. — ^We fail ! 

But screw your courage to the sticking place, 

And we '11 not fail ! 
Macbeth. — Bring forth men children only ; 

For thy undaunted metal should compose 

Nothing but males. 

"We have skipped a few lines, as the reader will see, to include, 
in this last extract, Macbeth's compliment to the strenuous char- 
acter of his wife, which — either from the gusto with which it waa 
read, or the suitableness of the voice and air of the reader to its 
spirit and meaning — produced a general smUe, over the hushed 
and admiring audience. 

The difference of magnetic control might well take the place of 
physiognomy and phrenology, in all estimates of the higher range 
of human beings, and it is only by the laws of this undefined 
science that Mrs. Butler's influence upon others could be ex- 
plained. When she enters a room, the general recognition of an 
unusually powerful nature is immediate ; and this, of course, ex- 
cites either a feeling of deference or resistance — the former pre- 
vailing, as subordinate natures much outnumber the magnetically 
unsubmissive. There is natural authority, unaffected conscious- 
ness of overruling power of purpose, in this lady's whole physiog- 
nomy, tone of voice and manner Nature has furnished the war- 



AMERICAN NASALITY. 187 



rant for this in a proportionate allowance of the indefinable power 
of electric personal magnetism — an influence felt as readily with- 
out acquaintance and without reason as with — and which explains, 
probably, Mrs- Butler's control over audiences, as it does the ex- 
cessive devotion of her friends and admirers, and the equally 
positive hostility of those who take sides against her. No one 
could listen to her or look at her, for five minutes, without know- 
ing her to be a very remarkable person. 

By the way — as a missionary of sweet voice — Mrs. Butler might 
dispense, in her present tour, a corrective more needed in this 
country than the taste that comes by Operas. From Maine to 
Georgia, we talk through our noses — and, as this lady chances to 
be, even among English women, a peculiarly fine example of a 
speaker of English through the throat and lungs, the opportunity 
of using these Readings as a tuning-key, is too valuable to be 
lost. Let any one stand at the door of the Stuyvesant Institute, 
as the audience goes out, and, with the absolute music of Mrs. 
Butler's softer tones in his memory, listen to the fashionable 
voices of the passers by ! If he has any comparison in his ear, 
he will wonder inexpressibly that the music of a tone is not more 
catching. 

We should be willing to give any degi'ee of offence that we 
could afford, if we could provoke curiosity to make this (now) 
easy comparison. The audiences at these Readings are of the 
class whose pronunciation is heard and remarked upon by the 
more intelligent foreigners who come among us, and (from a na- 
tional sensitiveness which may be reasoned down, but won't stay 
down), we are not a little interested to have the nasality, by 
which Americans are at once recognized abroad, corrected by our 
ct.ntlemen and ladies. Let any listener to Mrs. Butler observe 



188 PROPOSED EXPERIMENT. 



how noble and well-bred seems her utterance fiom the chest, and 
(to double the lesson) how it adds to the power of the divine gift 
of language, to allow, as she does to every sound a liberal and free 
utterance, and to every word its proper and un-slighted fulness. 
And then let the departing and delighted auditor, of these model 
tones, take the first sentence uttered on the way home (" What a 
pleasant evening!" for example), and ring it against any remem- 
bered sentence of the play just read. In nine cases out of ten, 
the contrast will be as great as between a French horn and a 
bagpipe. 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 

UNDER THE SPELL OF JENNY" LIND's MUSIC. 

We had a pleasure, the othei* evening, which we feel very 
unwilling not to share with every eye to which there is a road 
from the point of our pen. Three or four thousand people saw 
it with us; but, as there are perhaps fifty thousand more, to 
whom the pleasure can be sent by these roads of ink, those three 
or four thousand, who were so fortunate as to be present, will 
excuse the repetition — possibly' may thank us, indeed, for 
enlarging the sympathy in their enjoyment. In these days of 
magnetism, life seems to be of value, only in proportion as we 
find others to share in what we think and feel. 

It was perhaps ten minutes before the appearance of Benedict's 
magic stick ; and, in running our eye musingly along the right side 
of the crowded galley of Tripler Hall, we caught sight of a white 
object, with a sparkling dark line underneath, around which a 
number of persons were just settling themselves in their seats. 
Motionless itself, and with the stir going on around it, it was like 
a calm half moon, seen over the tops of agitated trees ; or like a 
massive magnolia blossom, too heavy for the breeze to stir, 
splendid and silent amid fluttering poplar-leaves. We raised our 



190 WEBSTER AND JENNY LIND. 



opera-glass, with no very definite expectation, and, with the eye 
thus brought nearer to the object, lo ! the dome over the temjple of 
Webster — the forehead of the great Daniel, with the two glorious 
lamps set in the dark shadow of its architrave. Not expecting to 
see the noble Constitution-ist in such a crowd, our veins tingled, 
as veins will with the recognition of a sudden and higher presence, 
and, from that moment, the interest of the evening, to us, was to 
see signs of the susceptibility of such a mind to the spells of 
Jenny Lind. Slight they mus^ be^ of course, if signs were to be 
seen at all ; but the interest iif watching for them was no less 
exciting — very slight variations, of the " bodies" above us, 
repaying fully the patient observation of the astronomer. 

The party who had come with Mr. Webster were " his lady" — 
(the Americanism of that synonym for " wife," grew out of our 
national deference to woman, and, let us cherish it) — the newly- 
elected Governor of the State and his lady, and General Lyman. 
They sat in the centre of the right hand side of the First 
Gallery, and, behind them, the crowd had gathered and stood 
looking at this distinguished party with deferential curiosity. 
Republican politeness had done what the etiquette of a Court 
would do — stationed one of the masters of ceremony, with his 
riband of office, to pay special attention to these honored 
strangers — and it chanced to bring about a pleasant incident. It 
was from a wish Mr. Webster expressed, accidentally overheard 
by this attendant and conveyed immediately to Jenny Lind, that 
she was induced to" vary the opera music of the programme, by 
the introduction of a mountain song of her own Dalecarlia. The 
audience, delighted with the change, were not aware, that, for it, 
they were indebted to a remark of the great " sky-clearer," thus 
spirited away from the cloud-edge of his lips. 



MUSIC OF THUNDER. 191 



We must remind the reader, here, that, to the cultivation of the 
voice, Mr. Webstei^s delivery shows that he has never paid 
attention. From other and sufficient advantages, probably, he 
has never felt the need of it. His ear, consequently, is uneduca- 
ted to melody ; and, in the rare instances when he has varied his 
habitual and ponderous cadences by a burst in a higher key, he 
has surpassed Art with the more sudden impassioning of Nature. 
Though, in reading a speech of Webster's, there are passages 
where youc nostrils spread and your blood fires, you may have 
heard the same speech delivered, with no impression but the 
unineuLubeied profoundness of its truth. To use what may seem 
like a common-place remark, he is as monotonous as thunder — 
but it is because thunder has no need to be more varied and 
musical, that Webster leaves the roll of his bass unplayed upon 
by the lightning that outstrips it. 

We were not surprised, therefore, that, to the overtures and 
parts of Operas which formed the first two -thirds of the evening's 
entettainment, Webster was only courteously attentive. He 
leaned back, with the stately repose which marks all his postures 
and movements, and, conversing between-whiles with his friends 
on either side, looked on, as he might do at special pleading in a 
court of Law. It was at the close of one of those tangled skeins 
of music with which an unpractised brain finds it so difficult to 
thread the needle of an idea, that he made the remark, overheard 
by the attendant and taken immediately to Jenny Lind : — " Why 
doesn't she give us one of the simple mountain-songs of her own 
laud .?" 

The mountain-song soon poured forth its loud beginning, 
impatiently claiming sympathy from the barren summits that 
alone listen where it is supposed to be sung. The voice softened. 



192 JENNY LIND'S SPELL. 



soothed with its own outpouring — the herdsman's heaxt wandered 
and left him singing forgetfully, and then the audience, (as if 
transformed to an Ariel that "puts a girdle round the earth,") 
commenced following the last clear note through the distance. 
Away it sped, softly and evenly, a liquid arrow through more 
liquid air, lessening with the sweetness it left behind it, but 
fleeing leagues in seconds, and with no errand but to go on 
unaltered till it should die — and, behold ! on the track of it, with 
the rest of us, was gone the heavy-winged intellect of Webster ! 
VYe had listened with our eyes upon him. As all know who have 
observed him, his habitual first mark of interest in a new matter, 
is a pull he gives to the lobe of his left ear — as if, to the thought- 
intrenched castle of his brain, there were a portcullis to be 
lowered at any sudden summons for entrance. The tone sped 
and lessened, and Webster's broad chest grew erect and expanded. 
Still on went the entrancing sound, altered by distance only, and 
changeless in the rapt altitude of the cadence — on — far on — aa 
if only upon the bar of the horizon it could faint at last — and 
forward leaned the aroused statesman, with his hand clasped over 
the balustrade, his head raised to its fullest lift above his 
shoulders, and the luminous caverns of his eyes opened wide upon 
the still lips of the singer. The note died — and those around 
exchanged glances as the enchantress touched the instrument 
before her — but Webster sat motionless. The breathless stillness 
was bi'oken by a tumult of applause, and the hand that was over 
the gallery moved up and down upon the cushion with unconscious 
assent, but the spell was yet on him. He slowly leaned back, 
with his eyes still fixed on the singer, and, suddenly observing 
that she had turned to him after curtsying to the audience, and 
was repeating her acknowledgments unmistakably to himself, he 



WEBSTER ENCHANTED. I93 



i-ose to his feet and bowed to her, with the grace and stateliness 
of the monarch that he is. It was not much to see, perhaps — 
neither does the culmination of a planet differ, very distinguish- 
ably, from the twinkle of a lamp — but we congratulated Jenny 
Lind, with our first thought, after it, at what is perhaps her best 
.single triumph on tKis side the water, the sounding of America's 
deepest mind with her plummet of enchantment. 

The " Echo," and the " Pasture Song" equally delighted Mr. 
Webster, and, after each of them, he passed his broad-spread 
hand from his brow downwards, (assisting his seldom aroused 
features, as he always does, in . their recovery of repose and 
gravity,) and responded to the enthusiasm of the friends beside 
him, with the pine-tree nod which, from his deej)-rooted approba- 
tion, means much. Let us add, by the way, (what we heard 
very directly,) that Mr. Webster,' who is peculiar for the instant 
completeness with which he usually dismisses public amusements 
from his mind — little entertained by them, and never speaking 
of them in conversation, when they are over — talked much of 
Jenny Lind after the concert, remarking very emphatically, 
among other things, that it was a new revelation to him of the 
character and capability of the human voice. The angelic 
Swede — alone with many memories, as she will be, some day — 
may remember with pleasure what we have thus recorded. 
9 



SIR HENRY BULWER. 

The new Englisli Minister, to this country, is a younger 
brother of Bulwer the novelist, and, perhaps, a man of as much 
talent, in his way. As our readers probably know, he has had a 
large influence ia the diplomacy of England for several years, and 
was, last, the British Minister to Spain. He is, in person, 
rather under the middle size, very slight, pale, and of an intellect- 
ual cast of features. His manners are the perfection of the style 
most prized in England, though rare even there — an elegance re- 
duced to absolute simplicity and nature — quiet, gentle, considerate 
of others, attentive and modest. We doubt whether there is a 
better model of a gentleman in the world. He was, some years 
ago, one of the habihtes of Lady Blessington's, and certainly 
showed to advantage in comparison with the elegant men who 
formed that brilliant woman's circle of friends. Sir Henry talks 
or listens with equal willingness, but his information, on any sub- 
ject that may come up, is sure to surprise, and his earnest truth- 
fulness, of diction and expression, impress forcibly at the time, 
but still more when it is remembered. We are not sure that 
Washington will prove an atmosphere in which he may best shine ; 
but, appreciated or not, he cannot fail to be very much liked. 



SIR HENRY BULWER. 195 



General Taylor, we venture to say, will find him a man after his 
own lieart — totally different as have been the currents of their 
two lives. 

It will be a pleasant event in Washington to have the English 
embassy open house under the auspices of the gentler sex. Lady 
Bulwer (we believe the minister was made a Baronet a year or 
two ago) is of noble descent, and, like all English ladies of her 
rank, very sure to entertain with the best-toned hospitality. Our 
barrack of a capital, so dependent on society for its happiness, 
may owe much to a lady's ministrations in this way, as the charm- 
ing examples of the Spanish Minister's house, and one or two 
others, have long shown. We hope Lady Bulwer's train will 
comprise two' or three young English ladies of her own class, as 
well as the gayer class of attaches^ who follow, of course, where 
the Envoy is a wedded man ; and that the British Embassy will 
be, here, what it is in the capitals of The Continent — the model 
and centre of all things courteous and hospitable. 



SAMUEL LOVER. 

To THE Editor of The Tribune : 

Mr. Lover's arrival among us is both more and less of an 
event than many take it to be — in the way of dramatic exhibition, 
not so much, and in the way of a remarkable -presence^ much more. 
My impulse to write to you is partly a dread, for him, of the POck 
Shakspeare had in his mind when he said " Promising is the very 
air of the time, Performance is ever the duller for his act." 
From various causes I think he will be ultimately better appre- 
ciated in this country than he ever was in his own — much as they 
think of him in England — but, from the ordinary mode of adver- 
tisement, and from the common phraseology of newspaper notice, 
many might go to his " Irish Evenings" expecting something 
more pretentious and dramatic than they would find, and it is 
against this possible counter-current of disappointment that I 
wish to guard his first appearance among us. I am anxious, for 
our American sake, that there should be no delay, no hesitancy, 
no lack of completeness, in the recognition of this fine spirit, and 
it is from having had my heart moved like an instrument under 
his hand — as the hearts of all are who hear him — that I feel a 
strong wish for his coming rightly before the public. 



SAMUEL LOVER. 197 



Lover is, as you know, the writer of songs equal (in popular 
effect) to any of Burns's. He is the author of Tales of 
humor, in a vein in which he has no equal. His songs are set to 
his own music, of a twin genius with the words it fuses. His 
power of narration is peculiar and u-resistible. His command of 
that fickle drawbrido-e between tears and laughter — that ticklish 
chasm across which touch Miith and Pathos — is complete and won- 
derful. He is, besides, a most successful play-writer, and one of 
the best miniature painters living. He is a Crichton of the arts of 
joyance for eye and ear. But it is not of his many gifts that I 
am now particularly aiming to remind your readers. 

I wish, if I may so express it, to anticipate our knowledge of 
Lover as a man. The probability is that nineteen in twenty, of 
those who know of his arrival, remember to have heard of him as 
an admired frequenter of the exclusive circles of London, and 
expect to see a finished man of the world, whose ore of genius 
has been tinseled over with superfine breeding, and whose stamp 
from Nature only comes to day-light in the thought of his songs. 
Their curiosity to see him, indeed, is half made up of a wish to 
see what sort of a man gives pleasure to Lords and Ladies, Court 
Wits and Exclusives, and their preconceived ideal is of a very fine 
gentleman, of polished coolness, high art in his music and man- 
ners, and the most beautiful concealment of his necessary con- 
tempt for dollar-paying Kepublicans. Of some of the social 
celebrities of England this might be a very just estimate and faith- 
ful ideal — but to Lover such anticipation were an injustice, and 
one which is as well prevented from throwing a prejudice over his 
past reputation. 

In his personal appearance Lover has no smack of superfine 
clay. He looks made out of the fresh turf of his country, sound, 



198 STYLE OF THE MAN. 



honest and natural. He is careless in his dress, a little absent in 
his gait and manner, just short and round enough to let his atmos- 
phere of fun roll easily about him, and, if frayed at all in the 
thread of his nature, a little marked with an expression of care — 
the result of years of anxieties for the support of a very interest- 
ing family. His features seem to use his countenance as a hus- 
sar does his jacket — wearing it loosely till wanted — and a more 
mobile, nervous, changing set of lineaments never playe'd photo- 
graph to a soul within. There is always about him the modest 
unconsciousness of a man who feels that he can always employ 
his thoughts better than upon himself, and he therefore easily 
slips himself off, and becomes the spirit of his song or story. He 
does nothing like an actor. If you had heard him singing the 
same song, by chance, at an Inn, you would have taken him to be 
a jewel of a good fellow, of a taste and talent deliciously peculiar 
and natural, but who would spoil at once with being found out by 
a connoisseur and told of his merits. He is the soul of pure, 
sweet, truthful Irish nature, though with the difference from 
others, that, while he represents it truly, and is a piece of it him- 
self, he has also the genius to create lohat inspires it. To an ap- 
preciative mind, it, of course, adds powerfully to the influence of 
a song, that the singer himself conceived the sweet thought, put 
it into words and melted it into music. 

Lover (I am trying all this time to couvoy) is so much better a 
thing than a fine geutlemau, or an accomplished actor or musi- 
cian — so genuine a piece of exuberantly gifted Nature, still uu 
spoiled from the hand of God — that the appeal, for appreciation 
of him, is to that within us which is deeper than nationality or 
fashion — to our freshest and most unsunned fountain of Lumnu 
liking. He has been recognized and admired, for his nature, in 



GENIUS A\B NATURE. 199 



the most artificial society in the world. It would be strange, in- 
deed, if he should find himself farther from appreciation of it, in 
a new Republic. 

i I have given you no idea of his peculiar style, but have endea- 
vored only to say what was not likely to be said soon enough by 
those unacquainted with him. 

Yours truly, 

W. 



MRS.. ANNA BISHOP. 

"We are not grasshoppers. We ai'e not so devoted to the sing- 
ing .Muses, (that is to say,) that, like the slender-legged dilettanti 
of the fields, we have listened ourselves into echoes. Our readers, 
(for whom we live, move, and do our admiring,) are content to 
know the name and magnitude of the planets among the prima 
donnas^ but are willing to let the lesser ladies take their " milky 
way," named but in nebulse, if telescoped at all. 

Wliat our country and Southern readers wish to know alout 
Mrs. Bishop, is the fish to be nibbled for in our inkstand this 
morning, and we shall endeavor, with a single eye to their satis- 
faction, to catch it, and it only. The critics are quarrelling with 
scientific bodkins, about her ear and her voice, but we take it our 
readers care little to know whether her voice is a " sfogato^'' or a 
aio di soprano — whether she commits the harmonic atrocity of 
consecutive fifths, or gluts the ear with her excess of the dimin- 
ished seventh. They (our charming subscribers) want a straight- 
forward, comprehensible, daguerreotypical, and as-personal-as- 
possible account, of who she is, how much of a beauty, whether 
well dressed, and (last and altogether least) what is her particu 
lar style of singing. At this we go. 



MRS. BISHOP'S FEATURES. 201 



Mrs. Bishop should be called Lady Bishop, for her husband is 
A Knight ; and if she has a right to his name at all, she has a 
right to his title. How she comes to be away from Sir Henry, 
and under the charge of an old gentleman of sixty, who weighs 
three hundred pounds, and plays the harp divinely, it is each 
subscriber's business to guess for himself. Public opinion has 
put in practice its decision, that questions of this nature shall 
only be raised to the professional prejudice of tt?i-attraetive wo- 
men. Signor Bochsa, we may add here, is the modern King 
David, never named without his harp, the long known teacher of 
England's aristocratic learners upon this becoming instrument, 
a wonderful player thereupon, and has been a very handsome 
man in his day. 

In sculpture, we believe, the face is finished last, and of the 
great number of women who seem to have been slighted only in 
the finishing, Mrs. Bishop is one. Her figure and movements 
seem perfection, but her features are irregular, and it is necessary 
to be very near her, to see what expression has done to supply 
the incompleteness of her beauty. When singing, her soul takes 
the effect into its own hands, like a clock that strikes right 
whether the dial is wrong or no ; and the way her nostrils, lips 
and eyes express beauty where beauty is not, is worth deaf and 
dumb people's coming to learn substitution by. "When she stands 
near the footlights on the stage, howeyer, (and we wonder 
whether she knows it,) the sharp throwing up of all the shadows 
of her features, by the ascending light, neutralizes even this ex- 
pression, and she is tEen seen to great disadvantage. These mis- 
thrown shadows particularly destroy the greatest peculiarity of 
her face — her upper lip— the nerve that follows the arched line 
of Its redness playing with its curve like a serpent on the rim of a 
9* 



202 MANAGEMENT OF GESTURE. 



cup, and holding the expression in command with a muscular 
pliableness and vivid grace, that seems as if it would force the 
blood through, if the nicest shade of its will of expression were 
not obeyed. Eyes of kindling and fearless vitality, teeth unsur- 
passable, and brilliant complexion, are beauties there was not so 
much need of educating, but they fulfil their errands to perfection. 
We have not mentioned her nose. She is going South, where, in 
the taste for blood horses, she will find an appreciation for the 
inspired and passionate play of her thin nostrils, of which the 
North is, as an audience, incapable. 

If Mrs. Bishop did not sing at all, and tormented no specula- 
tion in the sex of whose qualities she has as much as she likes, 
she would still be an object of very great curiosity to the sex 
whose costume she wears — she dresses so faultlessly, and, with 
such consummate art, communicates her motion to what she 
wears. The test is most trying, of course, in the dress with 
which ladies are most familiar ; and, at a concert, therefore, 
where she appears only in the evening dress of a lady, she is seen 
to the best advantage for comparison ; though, on the stage, 
whatever her costume — Tancredi or Linda, male or female — she 
equally presents the faultless type of its perfection. It is a rarer 
thing than it would seem at first naming, to see how a high-bred, 
thoroughly educated, unerringly comme il faut lady, dresses and 
hears herself in full dress, and, of this sort of courtly phenomenon, 
Mrs. Bishop is as fine a specimen as we ever saw in Europe. 
Her management of her hands and arms, her reception of ap- 
plause, her look of inquiry as to the will "of an audience in an 
encore, are all parts of the same picture of accomplished high 
breeding, and we presume we are not wrong in mentioning this 
among her attractions as a public performer. 



LACK OF FEELING. 203 



The critics concur that we have never had, in this country, a 
more perfect singer than Mrs. Bishop, as to taste and execution. 
She has a clear, high, manageable voice, and she has taken it 
thankfully from nature and made the most of it. It does not 
seem to matter much to her what language she is to sing in, or 
what style of song, or what music. Her pronunciation and execu- 
tion are alike admirable in all. At her concert, the other nighty 
she did what we should have predicted was impossible for her — 
full musical justice to two of Moore's most exquisite melodies. 
But, though we say " full justice," we must add that Nature 
suffers no faculty to perfect itself to independence of the heart. 
Some tones must be breathed on by a tear as they come from the 
bosom, or they are not recognized by the tears of the listener. 
Mrs. Bishop could not be the artist and actress that she_ exactly 
is, without putting her tenderness of nature far, very far, out of 
reach of easy call, and, though her music is thrilling, startling 
and enchanting, touching it is not. 



FIELDS, 

" THE AMERICAN MOXON." 

As it was a common romance, in olden time, for a fair dame to 
look sweet upon her lord and master's cup-bearer, we cannot be 
surprised that the Muse takes the whim of smiling upon the Poet's 
publisher. Fields has handed up, to Apollo, many a primrose- 
colored cup of poetry. His ambrosial curls, of course, teem with 
the aroma. Moxon, the English publisher, whose speciality is 
the same, and after whom Fields is usually called, when named 
in the talk of poets, has, alike, had the favors of " The Nine," 
and is also publisher and poet: Well, we do not know, that — 
(under the Socialist principles that govern Helicon) — we can find 
any reasonable objection. Take him, oh Melpomene ! 

])ut though every body, in the Slate-and-pencil-dom which is 
bounded South by the Lehigh and North by the Penobscot, 
knows Mr. Fields, yet we have six thousand subscribers. West 
of the Alleghanies and so down stream, who would be pleased to 
know his stature and complexion. Immaterial as it may be to 
mere enjoyment of the shade, it is natural to look up at the tree. 
We gratify this undeniable curiosity, for the friendly readers of 
t\e Home Journal, whenever it falls in our way. 



PUBLISHER-POET 20j^, 

Mr, Fields is a young man of twenty-five, and the mostt 
absolute specimen of rosy and juvenescent health that would be^ 
met with by the takers of the census. His glowing cheek and 
white teeth, full frame and curling beard, clear eyes and ready 
smile, are, to tell the truth, most un-symptomatic of the poet — • 
not even very common in publishers. He is a leading man in 
*' Young Boston" — the crank of mercantile and moral committees 
—the ambassador of popular thanks and honors to public men — 
the getter-up of such spontaneous enthusiasms as fill lecture- 
rooms and " make things go" — in short the man to apply to, if 
you want to know whether Boston can be moved, and how, and 
where. Mr. Fields finds the orators and poets for public 
occasions, or, in case of failure, delivers, himself, quite as good a 
performance, of either kind, as was first expected. He is thus, 
it will be seen, tricipitous in his functions — publisher, poet, and 

we wish there were a name for the third and last described 

character in a community. It is a kind of detail Grovernor^ 
" sleeping partner" of the Executive — confidential Secretary of 
the city's wishes — the person every one goes to, who seeks public 
favor — an un-nominated functionary, in short, such as is to be 
found in every great metropolis, using as much influence as the 
mayor and two aldermen, yet without any honorary designation. 

Mr. FiELDs's poems are scholar-like in their structure, musical, 
genial-toned in feeling, efibrtless, and pure-thoughted. He has a 
playful and delicate fancy, which he uses skilfully in his poems 
of sentiment, and a strongly perceptive observation, which ha 
exercises finely in his hits at the times and didactic poetry. The 
Wordsworthian poem called " The Ballad of the Tempest" has so 
gone the rounds of the papers as to be familiar to every reader^ 
or we should insert it here But we close our incomplete 



206 TRIBUTE TO ROGERS. 



mention of his book, by copying a bit of nice imagination with 
which, (in his late tour in Europe), he presented some pressed 
sea-mosses to the Poet Rogers : — 

" To him who sang of Venice, and revealed 
How Wealth and Glory clustered in her streets, 
And poised her marble domes with wondrous skill, 
We send these tributes, plundered from the sea. 
These many-colored, variegated forms 
Sail to our rougher shores, and rise and fall 
To the deep music of the Atlantic wave. 
Suck spoils we capture where the 7-ain-boivs drop 
Melting in ocean. Here are broideries strange. 
Wrought by the sea-nymphs from their golden hair, 
And wove by moonlight. Gently turn the leaf 
From narrow cells, scooped in the rocks, we take 
These fairy textures, lightly moored at morn. 
Down sunny slopes, outstretching to the deep. 
We roam at noon, and gather shapes like these. 
Note now the painted webs from verdurous isles 
Festooned and spangled in sea-caves., and say 
What hues of land can rival tints like those. 
Torn from the scarfs and gonfalo7is of ,{ings 
Who dwell beneath the waters. 

" Such our Gift, 
Culled from a margin of the Western World, 
And offered unto Genius in the old." 

We should add, by the way, that Mr. Fields's poems are 
published by Ticknor and Co., of Boston, the publishing house 
in which he is a partner. 



GRACE GREENWOOD. 

Miss Sarah J. Clarke, the authoress of the " Greenwood 
Leaves" — (" Grace Greenwood" by iiom de 'plume) — is a young 
lady, of perhaps eighteen, born, with the Ohio, at Pittsburgh, and 
destined, like this her foster-river, to have had a sufficiently dis- 
tinct and important existence of her own, before merging her 
name in her destined Mississippi. In personal appearance, she 
is more like an Andalusian than a child of the AUeghanies — her 
large Spanish eyes, oval outline of face and clear brunette com- 
plesion, looking to be of a nativity warmer and nearer the equator 
than the cold Blue Eidge — and, with her tall person, and fond- 
ness for horses and open air exercise, there seems a persistence 
of Nature in making her as much a personal, as she is a 
mental, exception to the latitude she lives in. Miss Clarke 
will pardon this flesh and blood introduction to our readers, 
when she remembers that there is a stage of progress, in 
the path to fame, where the awarding public insist upon 
knowing how looks the one on whom they are bestowing 
so much ; and the freedom we have taken is our unavoidable 



208 GRACE GREENWOOD 



recognition of lier now owing that debt to the curiosity of 
admiration. 

Of two classes who may be equally gifted with the almost 
supernatural perceptions of genius, one may be of reluctant in- 
vention, and fonder of running faithful parallels to their own ex- 
perience when writing, while the other may prefer the mere 
structures of the imagination, and trust to perceptive instinct to 
keep them true to nature. These are two scales, however, of 
which a chance-weight of experience may change the prepon- 
derance ; and, while a life too tranquil may have first driven a 
writer to take refuge in fancy, a thickening of pains and pleasures, 
in the path of real life, may reverse the attraction and bring the 
mind to describe joy and suffering of its own. Altogether from 
fancy, as " Glreenwood Leaves" seen to be written, we should not 
be surprised if the advance beyond the threshold of womanhood 
should altogether change the character of the writer's mind, and 
form, for her, an entirely new fame, in a new field of composi- 
tion. 

We have not time — nor is it the fashion — to criticise analyti- 
cally. To those who know what love and life are, this book, 
which is a gtiess at what they are, is speculatively interesting, and, 
by the perception of true genius which we alluded to above, its 
descriptions keep so near to nature that they are always captivat- 
ing. More fearless than most women, in the handling of her 
topics, the fair authoress certainly is ; but (though her language 
is vigorous enough, we should fear, to subject her " to militia 
duty,") it strikes us as a peculiarity which she had better culti- 
vate than abate, and one upon which she can form a style well 
suited to the stronger productions she will yet give us. 

Miss Clarke is about to appear as a poetess, by a volume now 



VIGOROUS VEIN. 209 



in press, and it is in verse, we think, that lier strong and impul- 
sive genius shows to most advantage. Several of her poems, 
which have appeared in the Home Journal, are exceedingly fine, 
our readers need not be told. 



FENNMORE COOPER. 

Mr. Cooper has been in town for a week or two past, looking, 
as the Scripture phrases it, " like a tiel tree or an oak, whose 
strength is in them though they cast their leaves." By the pre- 
sent promise of his robust frame, and steady eye, he will give us 
new leaves (of new books) for many a Spring yet to come. In a 
conversation with the eminent novelist while here, we reverted to 
the time when we first had the pleasure of seeing him — in Paris, 
in 1832 — and, among other remembrances of the period, he men- 
tioned a circumstance, illustrative of the long-ago gestation of the 
ambition of Louis Napoleon, which we asked leave to record, as a 
chiffon of history. Mr. Cooper's house, we should mention, was, 
at that time, the " hospice de St. Bernard'''' of the Polish refugees, 
and, as the nucleus of republican sympathies in the great capital. 
Lis intimacy with Lafayette, personal reasons aside, was neces- 
sarily very close and confidential. At his daily breakfast table, 
open to all friends and comers-in, (and supplied, we remember, 
for hour after hour of every day with hot buckwheat cakes, which 
were probably eaten nowhere else on that side the water,) many 
a distinguished but impoverished Polish refugee ate his only meal 
f«r the twenty-four hours, and, to the same hospitable house, 



COOPER'S HOSPITALITY. 211 



came all who were interested in the great principle of that struggle, 
distinguished men of most nations among them. But, to the 
story : — 

I was calling upon Lafayette, one day, (said Mr. Cooper) and 
was let in by his confidential servant, who, it struck me, showed 
signs of having something to conceal. He said his niaster was at 
home, and, after a moment's hesitation, made way for me to go 
on as usual to his private room — but I saw that there was some 
embarrassment. I walked in, and found the General alone. He 
received me with the same cordiality as ever, but inquired with 
some eagerness who let me in, and whether I met an old acquaint- 
ance going out. I told him that his old servant had admitted 
me, and that there was certainly something peculiar in the man's 
manner ; but as I had seen no one else, 1 knew nothing more. 
" Ah," said the General, " that fellow put him in the side-room. 
Sit down, and I will tell you. Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
was here tw^o minutes ago !" I expressed surprise, of course, for 
this was in '33, when it was death for a Bonaparte to enter 
France. " Yes," continued the General, " and he came with a 
proposition. He wishes to marry my grand-daughter Clementine, 
unite the RepuUicanists and Imperialists, make himself Emperor, 
and my grand-daughter Imperatrice !" And, if it be not an in- 
discreet question, I said, what was your answer, my dear Gene- 
ral ? " I told him," said Lafayette, " that my family had the 
American notion on that subject, and chose husbands for them- 
selves — that there was the young lady — he might go and court 
her, and, if she liked him, I had no objection." 

Mr. Cooper did not tell us (for of course he did not know) 
how the Prince plied his wooing, nor why he failed. The fair 
Clementine, who, thus, possibly, lost her chance of being an Em 



M2 LOUIS NAPOLEON 



:press, married Monsieur de Beaumont, and now represents her 
rejected admirer, as the French ambassadress at the court of 
Austria. Shortly after this visit to Lafayette, Mr. Cooper was 
in London, and mentioned to the Princess Charlotte, (the widow 
of the elder brother of the present President,) this venture of 
Prince Louis into the den of the Orleanists. " He is mad !" was 
the only reply. But the finger-post of " that way madness lies," 
does not always point truly. At any rate, there is a certain 
" method in his madness," for the same match between Impe- 
rialism and Kepublicanism. has been the Prince's pursuit ever 
since, and the chances are that he will finally bring it j.bout — 
Clementine's and other intermediate unbelievings, notwith- 
standing. 



SCHROEDER AND FAY. 

The appointment of Mr. Schroeder as Charge, d'^ Affaires to 
Sreden, gives us that " threshold of commendation," by which 
W3 have long wished to enter upon the subject of fitness in 
DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS. Before generalizing upon the 
matter, let us say more definitely, to those of our readers who 
have not had the good fortune to meet Mr. Schroeder, that a 
better model for an incumbent of that particular office could be 
picked from no diplomatic school, even in Europe. With 
singular elegance of person and a temperament naturally courtly 
and gracious, Mr. Schroeder is, in the best sense of the phrase, 
"an accomplished man." He has had such an education as few 
young men get in this country ; and, to the solid acquirements 
accessary in his profession as an engineer, are added a practical 
acquaintance with European languages — acquisitions, such as are 
rarely made by gentlemen of leisure, in the arts and music — fine 
scholarship — and habitual familiarity with the forms of refined 
society. A lovely wife, who has been the charm of the brilliant 
circle of which her mother's house is the centre at Washington, 
will not be a trifling accessory to what the new Charge takes 
with him to grace his office at the Court of Sweden. We may 



214 DIPLOMATIC FITNESS. 



well wish our country were always, and at every Court, to be as 
favorably represented. 

The appointment, alone, of Minister to England, might be 
kept, without objection, to serve its present purpose — a step of 
honor by which a Government Secretary could leave the Cabinet 
with dignity, or a shelf whereon a politician could be set aside as 
an honorary bust, when the plastic clay of his party influence 
stiffens beyond farther moulding. England knows our country 
well enough to make allowance for any manners in any man 
whom it was necessary for the American President thus to reward 
or get rid of. The language being the same, too, the talent 
which had brought the new Minister to his eminent position at 
home, would be likely to come out in conversation ; and force of 
character and originality of mind would be appreciated by 
English statesmen, even through the nasal accent, exaggerated 
phraseology, and newly-adopted manners, which would very 
likely be their accompaniments, in a purely political appointee. 

The mission to France is also, perhaps, too important a gift to 
be taken away from party bestowal, and both this and the mission 
to England, from our important relations with these two countries, 
require men of sound judgmont and some breadth of opinion and 
experience — though, to have our country represented at Paris by 
a man who does not fluently speak French, let his claims other- 
wise be what they may, is a discreditable possibility which wo 
trust to Heaven our public sense of dignity will outgrow. 

Allowino' overruling reasons to make exceptions of these twa 
Missions, however, tlio others, it seems to us, (and the Secretary- 
ships of all,) should be given to those only who have the kind of 
education to enable them to perform their duties, properly and 
gracefully. A knowledge of French, which is the diplomatic 



TYPES OF COUNTRIES. 215 



language all over the world, ought, in common decency, to be the 
siTie qua non of eligibility. Good manners, presentable family, 
and such character as would make a man a desirable acquaintance 
in his own country, should also be indispensable ; and, to make 
the offices worth accepting by such men, they should be perma- 
nent, or changeable only by promotions granted on the principles 
of professed diplomacy. 

For all the emergencies of diplomatic transactions, elsewhere 
than in England and France, an easily acquired knowledge of 
International Law would abundantly suffice — or, there is experi- 
enced counsel and legal advice to be had, for the seeking out, in 
any capital where there is a Court. But official duty is the least 
part of that for which a diplomatist is called upon. However few 
may see, or have intercourse with him, his qualities are known, 
throughout th.3 country to which he is sent, and he stands for a 
type — (and a favorable type, too) — of his own country's civiliza- 
tion, intelligence and manners. America, particularly, which is 
so far away, is judged of by its diplomatic representatives ; and, 
since the gaze of every country in the world is directed especially 
toward America by the pointing finger of emigration, the 
authenticated specimen which officially represents it, is looked 
upon with more critical examination, even than the diplomatists 
of other countries, and the inferences of such scrutiny are, by no 
means, of trifling importance. Will the reader recal to mind 
some of the late applicants for Foreign Missions, and imagine 
them figuring in European capitals as fair specimens of our 
country's best education and manners ! 

There are two languages necessai-y to a Foreign Minister or 
Charge, without which he cannot discharge the duties of his 
office His principal duty, of course, is to keep his own 



216 AWKWARD HONORS 



Grovernment better advised, than it can be by foreign newspapers, 
of the true state of the country he is sent to. The undercurrent 
of opinions, as expressed in the free and friendly conversations of 
society, is vrhat he is officially bound to be acquainted with, and 
for this, we say, he requires two languages — the French Imiguage 
in the first place, and, in the second place, the language of 
polished manners^ without which no one will exchange with him 
more than the most formal courtesies. But, besides this inca- 
pacity for official duty, there are awkwardnesses consequent upon 
an ignorance of the French language, which are a shame to the 
country that has sent out such an ignoramus. As compliments 
of course to any new American Minister, he is invited to a 
succession of dinners, given him by the Ambassadors of the 
different Powers of Europe. There is no language but French 
spoken at table, and there sits the guest of honor, blundering 
ludicrously if he tries to make a remark, misunderstanding 
ludicrously all that is said to him, or looking ludicrously like an 
idiot if he is entirely silent ! It is a matter of form that he is 
invited to every large party, and he goes always to Court 
receptions — standing about, every where, without a word to say, 
or talking so awkwardly that every one ayoids him, and it takes 
but a short time for such a man to become the laughing-stock of 
a foreign capital — as many an American Minister has been, under 
just these circumstances. 

We wish our " appointing powers" could know how this 
government is graced and honored in Prussia, by the courtly 
knowledge, high principled life, and winning manners of the 
Secretary of its Legation, and sometime Charge, Theodore Fay, 
He and his admirable wife and sweet child, after twelve years'" 
residence in Berlin, are the beloved of that Court and capital,— - 



SCHROEDER AND FAY. 217 



TtJ liplomatie family better known or more respected. In the 
mouth which we passed there, when last abroad, we became con- 
vinced, that a character which would stand the test of long 
residence, superior personal qualities, and intellectual habits and 
tastes, were of far more importance than is generally supposed, in 
the diplomatic representation of a couhtry. The respect with 
which Fay was met and treated, in all our many walks about 
Berlin, the evident partiality and affection felt for him by all 
classes, the deference shown him in society, and the consideration 
with which (as I learned from various competent authority) he 
was invariably treated at Court, could not but be advantageous to 
the estimate of America in that country, while, at the same time, 
such tribute was most creditable to himself. With such a 
Secretary, indeed, the injurious impression of even an unfavorable 
specimen of a Minister, would be partly neutralized. 

We think there is already a leaning toward making our 
diplomacy, as it is in other nations, a regular profession. We 
are delighted with the appointment of Mr. Schroeder as a step 
towards it — for, as in the case of Theodore Fay, the admirable 
qualification for the office will create such reasonableness, in his 
retaining it, that an Administration would not remove him except 
for promotion, and tliis makes it, at once, into a profession which 
a prudent and high-minded gentleman might profitably adopt. 
10 ^ 



THE NEW ?RIMA-DONNA, STEFFANONI. 

With powers of attention overdone with extra labor, (prepar- 
ing a book for the press, for which we venture deferentially to 
bespeak the favor of our readers, as well as indulgence for less of 
labor elsewhere,) we went to the opening performance of the 
Opera company from Havana. With so little likelihood to be 
pleased, seldom has one sat down to a play. Private advice that 
all the singers were suffering from the epidemic influenza, did not 
improve expectation. Patience protecting against the great de- 
lay in raising the curtain — ears objecting to the too noisy per- 
formance of the delicious overture — tenor annoying us with an 
iU-joined piecing out of his voice with a falsetto — -were other 
clouds upon the horizon of our admiration, threatening to shut 
from us the brightness of the new-sprung star. Enter the 
Druidical priestess, at last — unexcited with any expectation of 
applause, apparently — very cold and very indifiFerent — decidedly 
a handsome woman and probably trusting carelessly to that — 
better musical execution than we expected, but voice husky in 
the lower notes — throughout the first scene or two, in fact, dis- 
mally justifying unfavorable anticipations. We employed the 
time in analyzing the renowned loveliness of the fair Steffanoni. 



STEFFANONI. 219 



She is tall and large. Her face is one of those that would be 
frightful in daguerreotype, though beautiful in nature ; not regu- 
lar, but with that look of folded-up expression, as if capable of 
great beauty " if need were." Her upper lip is unfinished on 
the inside, and, during impassive singing, does cot play well upon 
the teeth — eyes small, as is apt to be true of impassioned women, 
and nose slightly turned-up, idem. Her walk was most majestic 
and unpremeditatedly graceful. Her arms and hands were ad- 
mirably full, tapering, round and white, and the dimples on her 
fingers were of infantine depth and distribution. Arms managed 
with such unconscious grace and effect, we made up our mind 
from the first, we had seldom if ever before seen. 

As the Druidess went on, and sang her invocation to the moon, 
it became gradually evident, we thought, that justice had not 
been done, by fore-running Fame, to the finish and style of her 
musical conception and education. Without effort, and with a 
carelessness of effect that began to act like a charm upon us, she 
reached the full utterance and meaning of each passage, and her 
calm but thoughtful acting drew attention more and more from 
herself, and involved us in the interest of the play. It was not 
till the last scene of the first act, however, that she developed her 
powers with any startling effect. When the youthful priestess 
confessed to her superior that her vows had yielded to love, and 
the coming in of the Proconsul betrayed to Norma that it was he 
— the faithless father of her own children — with whom the erring 
one was preparing to fly, then awoke, suddenly, the indolent 
genius of which we had seen but the look of possibility in her face, 
and a great actress was before us. The voice threw off its hoarse- 
ness, the countenance its concealments, the form its languor. 
Those beautiful arms, bare from the shoulder, so gestured that 



220 SNUBBING THE PUBLIC. 



the most trifling motion had its degree of language. Finer atti- 
tudes of reproach and lofty fury, of passionate pleading and 
abandonment to overwhelming denunciation, we think a painter 
could scarce invent. Her great beauty, and the singular fitness 
of her looks to the character, completed the illusion, and it was 
Norma, that, with moved heart, we saw and pitied, not Stefia- 
noni. At the dropping of the curtain upon the unexpected and 
wonderful acting of this scene, the applause of the electrified 
audience was tumultuous. 

How this delightful musical advent will wear, with the trials in 
other characters, we cannot say. Norma kept up her power 
throughout the remaining scenes of the Ojjera, and went oif with 
a triumph to which there was no drawback or dissent. I'he fas- 
cinating reserve of power which there seems to be, even when 
most excited, promises well for other efibrts, and we can only 
wonder, Stefiiinoni being what she shows herself in this trying 
character, that the trumpet of Fame had not more noised her 

coming and value. 

****** 

There is a French proverb which is worthy to be the " posy of 
a ring" — " on ne fcut irop sViiomilier devant Dieu, ni trop iraver 
les homines''''- — and, whatever may be the religious humility of 
Signer Marti and the Havanese company, they seem to have 
made the latter expediency, that of snubbing the public, their 
rule of professional conduct. And it takes. The anecdotes that 
are afloat, of Steffanoni's empress-like caprices and Vesuvian de- 
monstrations of will — the questions as to the Ariadne-necked 
Bosio's tractability — the certainty of Marini's being, with all his 
vim and vehemence, as joiunaUer as the loveliest of women — tho 
April-like caprices of the delicate he-and-she organ of Salvi — are 



EFFECT OF APPLAUSE. 321 

all, we repeat, intensifications of the public interest in this Opera 
company, and we would give something to hear of one indignant 
component of the Public who has stayed away from Niblo's in 
consequence. No, sir ! No, Madam ! Obsequiousness is too 
much used in business in this country, (politeness and " drum- 
ming" being the up-town and down-town terms for the same 
commodity.) to be politic or captivating ; and we like those best 
who have most the air of being able to do without us — many an 
old-fashioned axiom to the contrary notwithstanding. See the 
crowded houses, on the nights after our sovereign public has been 
put off, at three hours' warning, and reflect upon the things " put 
up with," such as the bouquets that sufifer from " hope deferred," 
countermanded beaux, and general dislocation of the week's en- 
gagements ! 

Wc take back a little of the indifference we expressed last 
week, as to Steffanoni's performance in " La Favorita," for we 
have since sat it out, and, though the first third of it is all spurts 
and attitudinizing, it mellows as it gets on. "We had chanced 
never before to see the Opera except with the pussy-cat persona- 
tion of Bertucca, and wooden-puppet playing of Forti, and it was 
hard to displace so unfortunate an impression. The Havanese 
Cleopatra, however, took up the composer's inspiration, at the 
point where the unhappy mistress of the King first feels true love 
for the husband to whom she has been given as a riddance, and, 
thence onward, through scorn and abandonment to forgiveness 
and death, she gave us the perfection of lyric tragedy, in an 
overwhelming probability and truthfulness. She is a great wo- 
man, this Steffanoni ! We were struck, by the way, with the ex- 
quisite letting-out of fold after fold of reserve, produced by the 
persevering acclamation of the audience at the close of the long 



322 STAGE SOVEREIGNTY. ' 

Bolo, we think, in the second act. Thunder No. 1 — she slightly 
and gravely curtesied with a simple look of " I thank yon.'''' 
Thunder No. 2 — she slightly spread her hands, and curtesied a 
little more proclivitously, with a look of " Jaot glad you like it, 
but it would have lecn just as good if you hadn't.'''' Thunder 
No. 3 — her features indolently relaxed, and she spread those 
well-moulded and beautiful arms a little farther, with a conde- 
scending look of " You are my natural subjects, and I kindly re- 
ceive your homage.'''' Thunder and no end to it — and at last 
there came the indolent and reluctant smile — the curtsy was 
lowered to the point of ovcrcome-itude — the magnificent arms 
spread and stood motionless at one graceful pose for a moment, 
and then — applause continuing — out turned, (like the leaves of a 
water-lily, blooming in a second, to the sun breaking through a 
cloud) those dimpled and tapering fingers, with the soft and white 
palm of her telegraphic hand, held for the first time, freely and 
aflfectionately open to the public. With an eighth of an inch of 
gesture, we never dreamed before that so much could be added 
to what had been already expressed, but it said, " JVew York 
really begins to know me, at last, and Pll sing as I know how — 
so, idolize away /" And so we will, you superb and imperial 
creature ! 



FREDERIKA BREMER. 

Miss Bkemer left Nl^w York, in the glow of a second 
impression which had entirely superseded the first. By the 
dangerous experiment of displacing a glowing ideal by an 
unprepossessing reality — substituting the fiesh and blood for the 
imaginary image — she seemed at first to be a sufierer. The 
slowness with which she spoke, and the pertinacity with which 
she insisted on understanding the most trifling remark made to 
her, a little dashed the enthusiasm of those who newly made her 
acquaintance. Farther intercourse, however, brought out a 
quaint and quiet self-possession, a shrewd vein of playfulness, a 
quick observation, and a truly charming simplicity, which re-won 
all the admiration she had lost, and added, we fancy, even to the 
ideal of expectation. Those who have seen her most intimately 
pronounce her to be all goodness, truth and nature, and she is, 
(as far as our own observation goes,) a walking lesson of mannerz 
of another school^ of which our own may well profit in the study. 



LIEUT. WISE, 



AUTHOR OF LOS GRINGOS. 



Conversational literature, or books writlein as agreeable 
people talk, is the present fashion with authors and passion with 
readers. Herman Melville, with his cigar and his Spanish eyes, 
talks Typee and Omoo, just as you find the flow of his delightful 
mind on paper. Those who have only read his books know the 
man — those who have only seen the man have a fair idea of his 
books. Thackeray's novels are stenographed from his every-day 
rattle with his intimates. " Two Years before the Mast" is like 
a quiet, ide-a-tcte yarn. " Kaloolah" carries you away with its 
un-literary reality. In writing a book, now-a-days, the less you 
" smell of the shop" the better it sells. 

This is an exponent of the age. It is the " spirit of the time" 
to get rid of hindrances and " nonsense." In diplomacy, straight- 
forwardness has stripped the artichoke of etiquette down to a 
palatable pith. In war, lucn go to battle with the least cumbrous 
dress instead of the heaviest armor. In legislatures, he who is 
least of a rhetorician and comes quickest to the point, has the 
most influence. In society, late balls and formal suppers are 
yielding to early " receptions" and light entertainment. In 



CHANGE IN AUTHORSHIP. 225 



dress, ceremony has quite given way to comfort and convenience. 
And last, (thougla most important, and to be alluded to with 
proper respect,J " Puseyism" is making an alarmed rally to pro- 
tect, from this spirit of nudification, the imposing ceremonials of 
religion. 

Hearts whose fibres spread through the world — minds that 
could make whole nations grateful — have been the privileged pre- 
rogatives, till now, of regular poets and authors. Genius, as 
shown in conversation, was limited to a sphere of listeners and 
personal acquaiut:mce. A man might say more brilliant things 
in au hour than an author could put into the reading of two 
hours, yet the brilliant talker occupied but a circle of friends, and 
the less brilliant author occupied the universe. This unequal 
occupancy of spac3, honor and control, (by authors ruling nations 
of thought, as by kings ruling nations of people,) was a monopoly 
which, in this free day, could be permitted no longer. Superi- 
ority of all kinds must have general recognition. Talkers must 
share the sceptre of Pen and Ink. The world must be delighted 
with thought in its undi-ess, and be content to yield its admiration 
as willingly to unc-lassic utterance of good things in print, as to 
utterance of good things in delightful conversation. The court- 
entrance, at the ej/e, was made as free to all comers and costumes, 
as the unceremonious gateway of the ear. 

Under this new franchise, numbers of gifted men, hitherto only 
known to their friends, are extending their acquaintance to the 
whole reading world. Any body who can talk agreeably to six, 
has only to put his (houglits down as he talks them^ and he is as 
agreeable to ten thousand as he was to six. How often have we 
met persons with v/hosa voice-born discourse we have been en- 
chanted, and wondered that, in a world of daguerreotypes and 



226 CONVERSATIONAL NARRATIVE. 



clairvoyance, sucli gifts could be imprisoned by the limit of vocai 
Utterance ! 

The book whose name is at the head of this article is one of 
the most agreeable men in the world — put into print. " Wise, 
of the Navy," (whom we name, thus familiarly, because by this 
designation he will be delightedly recalled to memory by the 
most spirituelle circles in different cities of the Union,) has had 
for years a moveable Dickens-dom, bounded by every four walls 
that contained him and his friends. To all who were fortunate 
enough to enjoy his society — to a few at a time — he has given the 
pleasure that Dickens gives to millions, using carelessly, profusely 
and jollily, two or three of the rarest qualities of genius. For 
that power of unexpected parallelism, which bi ings together, sud- 
denly and laughably, the most distant opposites in grotesque 
similitude — for the quick analysis of a thought or feeling which 
supplies material for wit — for the genial and irresistible humor 
which makes what people familiarize by the phrase, " the mer- 
riest fellow in the world" — we hardly know the equal of the 
author of Los Gringos. Mingled as these qualities are with the 
refinement of a high-bred gentleman, and singularly varied expe- 
rience of the world as an officer and a traveller, they form a 
power for giving pleasure which it would have been a thousand 
pities not to universalize by literature. 

To the tedium of ship-board we doubtless owe this conversa- 
tional narrative which, for lack of better audiences, flowed out 
upon paper. The author's irrepressible gayety would never have 
confined itself to pen and ink — on shore. He has used the 
leisure of his last professional cruize in the Pacific, to scribble- 
talk over his adventures in out-of-the-way places ; and though a 
cautious friend, who had the overhauling of the manuscript, 



LOS GRINGOS. 227 



crossed out some of its most characteristic and amusing passages, 
there is enough left to introduce the writer very fairly to the 
public. A gay man's views of the manners of the Society- 
Islands — written boldly and merrily as they appeared to an ad- 
venturous young officer — could not be otherwise than amusing, 
even if written with far less talent. The great interest of the 
book, however, is the description of a most perilous " running of 
the gaiintlet" across the Southern Continent in the time of the 
late war — Lieut. Wise having been sent, with secret dispatches, 
from the Pacific Squadron to the city of Mexico, and having 
traversed alone this twenty-five hundred miles, forward and back, 
Diostly on horseback, and with curiously varied adventure. In 
old times his performances on this duty would have made him a 
theme for the troubadours. 

We shall give next week some extracts from this delightful 
book, " Los Grringos," (which we believe is a Spanish phrase, 
partially of reproach, and means foreigners who are in search of 
adventure,) and we stop for the present with commending it to 
the perusal of all who would know more of strange scenes and 
places, and who are curious, moreover, to know how life looks, in 
these its outskirts, to an unbaptized author and a gentleman of 
gopius. 



MADEMOISELLE ALBOKL 

A GLIMPSE that we once had of this ladj, who is the present 
^^rage''' in London, may possibly be worth mentioning to our 
friendly readers. We were passing a solitary day in Hamburg, 
some three years ago — on our return to London from Berlin. 
The weather was vile, and, after a weary morning of trudging 
through the dirty streets under an umbrella, we sat down to the 
table-d'hote dinner of the Hotel, expecting no company but 
foreign clerks and supercargoes, and inclined to satisfy our hun- 
ger with shut eyes and ears. The soup was removed, when two 
persons entered whom we took at first sight to be rather flashy 
foreigners, and whom we should have guessed to be professed 
gamblers, but that the landlord made room for them at the head 
of the table with more deference than is given to ordinary 
travellers. One was a slight, dark-whiskered man with a mous- 
tache, not very prepossessing. The other was a fat and smooth- 
faced youth, with long hair parted on the middle of the head, fine 
teeth and fine eyes, an expression of the most sensuous joyousness, 
and the impulsive laugh of a child. The dress of the latter was 
rather theatrical, the shirt bosom elaborately worked and ruffled, 
cellar turned down, cravat loose, and the waistcoat ready to burst 






A DISGUISE. 229 



its tightly drawn buttons with the most un-masculine fulness of 
the chest. A constant thrusting of the hands cavalierly into the 
trowsers pockets when not engaged in eating, an apparently com- 
plete unconsciousness of observation, and a readiness to laugh 
loud at the least encouragement, amused us in our idle looking- 
on, but, though beard there was none, we had no idea that the 
fat personage in the baggy-hipped pantaloons ivas a woman ! 
We left the table, as the merry mouth we had been looking at 
was taking the first puff of a cigar, and the next morning, as we 
were taking our departure, the landlord informed us that our 
jolly vis-a-vis was the celebrated Mademoiselle Alboni ! 



# 




^ 



SIR WILLIAM DON. 

Before speaking of this gentleman's performance, we should 
Confess to having gone to the Play with very erroneous impres- 
sJons. The town chat wholly misrepresented what was to be 
looked for. A baronet's appearance as a theatrical " star" was, 
of course, matter for lively curiosity, and, that his favorite line of 
characters should be the clowns of low comedy, was quite enough 
to give the new star a comet's equipment — of a tah. And, to the 
usual and invariable demurrer, (" the papers say so and so, but 
what is \he fact ?") the tale was told, viz : — that Sir William was 
a London blase, who had ruined himself with drink and dissipa- 
tion, and, having shown a little talent over the bottle, as a 
.buffoon, he had slid over the horizon where the sun and other 
luminaries go to recuperate, and was trying the stage as a despe- 
rate extremity. The play advertised was the Comedy of '• Used- 
Up," and we took our seat in the parterre, sorry for the profes- 
sional necessity which mads it worth while for us to sei what we 
erroneously presumed would bo only a humiliating commentary 
on the title of the piece. 

Curious enough— (a phenomenon we scarce ever saw before) — 
the " house" was both very thin and very -^f^hionablo. The 



CURIOUS AUDIENCE. 231 



ladies who prefer " fast men" were there, ia un-missing Pleiades, 
'•^he belles who think for themselves — a sparse and glittering 
sprinkle of the Via Lactea — were brilliantly conspicuous. It 
looked well for the new comer that the twenty or thirty men who 
constitute the average masimum of presentable English in New 
York, seemed all to be there. The remainder of the audience 
might apparently have been divided between the press-ditti, the 
indigenous dandies, the sporting men, and a few innocent 
" strangers in town" who had come to see a live Baronet. 

The supernumeraries dialogued up the attention of the audi- 
ence, and in walked Sir William as " Sir Charles" — a Baronet 
representing a Baronet — and proceeded to picture the insuffera- 
bleness of an unarousable platitude of sensation. The reader 
knows the play — turning on the exhaustion of the sensibilities for 
pleasure, and their renewal by a little wedlock and adversity. 
We began to think, after a few sentences — it was so perfectly 
like a scene in a real life — that Sir William was disgusted with 
his thin audience, and was simply repeating the part, in his own 
character, for form's sake. Meantime we had taken a look at 
the man. 

Sir William — (as little as possible like the " used-up" Sir 
Charles of the play) — was an unusually tall specimen of health 
and adolescence, with that unesplainable certainty of a clean 
shirt and every pore open, which distinguishes those Englishmen 
to whom economy in washing has never been suggested. A 
clear eye ; a remarkably thin and translucent nostril ; a skin be- 
neath whose fresh surface his wine, if he had ever drank any, had 
played the " Arethusa, coming never to the light ;" singularly 
beautiful teeth, and a smile as new and easy as a girl's of sixteen-; 
a long-leggedness that would have been awkward with anything 



232 NATURAL ACTING. 



but the unconsciousness of good blood ; hands (the rarest accom- 
plishment in the world) with every finger negligently at ease ; *^ 
perfect self-possession, and an Englishman's upper and lower 
nationalities, (long straps and chin in a voluminous parenthesis of 
shirt collar,) were some of the particulars of the Sir William we 
were compelled to substitute for the one we had expected to see. 

As we said before, Sir William seemed to have given up the 
idea of actings and to be simply walking through the part in his . 
own character. He received the gay widow who came in for 
charity, " proposed" to* her for excitement, showed a lord-and- 
master's half-awareness that his pretty little dependent foster- 
sister was in love with him, quizzed his companions, yawned and 
lounged — exactly as a gentleman in real life would do every one 
of these very things. In France, of course, this would be the 
perfection of acting. On the English and American stage, where 
nothing " brings down the house" but exaggeration and carica- 
ture, it is voted "slow," "tame," and "a failure," as we had 
heard it described. 

But, we have yet to speak of the novelty for Americans^ that is 
to be found in the performances of this new star, viz : — the tone, 
accentuation and pronunciation of the English language, as spoken 
by gay, clever, high-born and high-bred young Englishmen. We 
do not believe there could possibly be a finer example of this, 
than in Sir William Don. Simple as it seems, and unconsciously 
as he does it, it is an art that must have been begun by a man's 
grandmother, at least, and cannot be learned in one generation. 
A vulgar nobleman (and there are such things) cannot do it. A 
man must have good taste, and conscious superiority, as well as 
good blood and conversance with the best society, to speak tha> 
quality of English. The playful but perfect justice to every con 



PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH. 233 

sonant and A^owel — an apparent carelessness governed by the 
classic correctness of Eton and Oxford — a clean tongued and 
metallic delivery of cadences — a delicately judicious apotheosis of 
now and then a slang word — a piquant unexpectedness in the 
location of such tones as precede smiles or affectations of ignoi'- 
ance — a certain reluctance of the voice, as if following the thought 
superciliously — and, withal, a sort of absolute incapability of 
being disturbed or astonished into a vaiiation of even a quarter 
of a tone — are among the component elements of this which we 
call an o^rt^ and which is, of all the tests of a man's quality in 
England, the most relied upon and the most unmistakeable. To 
most of those who hear Sir William Don, his nice excellence iu 
this difficult art will seem only a simple and natural way he has of 
speaking ; but, to artistic ears and perceptions practised in 
travel, it will be a luxury indeed to hear him — (in parts, that is 
to say, where he personates a gentleman, and does not disguise 
his voice and accent.) The way English is spoken by the men 
of mark in Sfc James' street, is a Jenny-Lmd-ism in its way — as 
inimitable as her copy of the articulation of " the blest" — and, 
if Sir William Don would confine himself to high comedy^ and 
show us the gentleman only, he would, with his natural gift at 
imitation, and his evidently superior talent, make a special orbit 
of success for himself, while, at the same time, he gives us, in 
America, what nobody else on the stage is at all likely to treat 
us to. 



PARODl'S LUCREZIA BORGIA. 

From a Chevalier Bayard to a Don Quixote — from an " enter- 
prising merchant" to a headstrong bankrupt — from a philanthro- 
pist to an egotist — from a saint to a hypocrite — from the finest 
eloquence to the flattest bombast, and from true poetry to terri- 
ble twaddle — are some of the thousand variations of that " one 
step" mentioned in the old proverb "from the sublime to the 
ridiculous." The more we see of the "successes" of this world, 
the closer seems to us the neighborhood between every true thing 
and its counterfeit, and the more critical the risk of taking the 
wrong for the right one. We never saw a more even chance of 
" hit or miss" than in the acting of Parodi. In Norma, she 
made such a. false extravaganza of the part, that we gave up all 
hope of being pleased with her — in Lucrezia Borgia, she played 
and sang most daringly and truthfully well. If we had seen her 
first in this her second performance, we should have received a 
very different impression from her dehut — eagerly looking for her 
next evening's brilliancy, as a star of the first magnitude, instead 
of dropping-telescope, as we did, not to waste our astronomy on 
an ignis fatuus that we presumed would presently dissolve. 

To treat our country readers to eomething new about Parodi, 



PECULIARITY OF LIP. 23& 



however — the critics having left all the adjectives in the language 
breathless with praising her — let us say a word or two upon the 
defect that is most apparent. 

There are female physiognomies that would be improved by a 
moustache ; but Parodi has an accidental need of one — over and 
above the common disadvantage which her sex experience from 
Nature's refusal of this trifle of peltry to their furniture of ex- 
pression. Her upper lip, (long enough for all the uses of beauty, 
in repose,) is too short for some of the expressions of tragedy, 
though this would be less observable if there were not a short- 
coming within as well as without — a failure, apparently, of the 
lubricating moisture, at moments of emotion, so that the lip, in- 
stead of sliding down into a look of fury or sorrow, is left " high 
and dry" above the teeth, stranded immovably upon a smile! 
How a moustache, which would cover this inaction of the upper 
lip, might improve the tragic power of Siguorina Parodi, those 
who have looked into the advantages of this labial domino of our 
sex will easily understand. As it is, she seems, every now and 
then, strangely to depart from the consistency of what she repre- 
sents, by an untimely introduction of a smile amid the most 
tragic gestures and music. 

It was by chancing to have taken a seat very near the stage, 
that we alone discovered how completely and powerfully the play 
of the other features was tragic throughout; and we think it 
worth while to guard those who see Parodi from a distance, 
against taking for smiles what are only the refusals of the agitat- 
ed bivalve, dried with the fever of excitement, to closs over the 
pearls meant to tempt the diver only in sunshine. While critics 
may sit near the stage, however, the public generally will still be 
at a distance, where this defect cannot but mislead ; and we 



836 PASSION OR GENIUS? 



should think, (by the way,) that an inactivity in a female lip is a 
defect that might be overcome. Those of us who have never 
suffered from torpidity in this particular muscle, can scarcely 
judge — but, more exercise for her upper lip, in some way that will 
make the vital fluid supply its secretions more promptly, should 
be urged upon Signorina Parodi, we venture respectfully to 
suggest. 

Having thus mentioned, what, in the performance of Lucrezia 
Borgia, was the only point of objection worth naming, we need 
only express our entire 'concurrence in the admiration that has 
been showered upon this powerful actress and delicious singer by 
M. de Trobi iand and other critics. Her voice is the very essence 
of the melody of passion — intense, edge-less, rich, liquid and in- 
toxicating — a cura-Qoa among the wines of operatic voices. 
How her fright, on the night of her first singing in Norma, could 
so have disguised this last named excellence, we cannot easily 
understand. We went, on Friday night, prepared neither for 
the voice nor the acting which, (without repeating the critical 
particulars given in other journals, we will simply say,) so 
enchanted us. The evening's sensations took us entirely by sur- 
prise. Though, even yet, it does not seem to be genius that she 
has. She is like a mill, whose expected current is low, but 
whose wheels are set in motion by a side brook, swelled with a 
storm in the mountains. Her intense capabilities of passion as a 
woman seem to have rushed into the channel of genius, and to 
have aroused to the uttermost every nerve and muscle by which 
genius would copy nature. Whether she will bring these same 
Impulses to bear upon other Operas — what sort of " Elvira" she 
will be — we cannot. feel sure. We should recommend to her not 
to try the " Soninambula." But, as a ''Lucrezia Borgia," 



MALE GAIT. 237 



Signorina Parodi, (we rejoice to be able to say,) must be allowed 

worthy of the mantle of Pasta. 

****** 

Parodi in moustache and male attire, playing the Romeo to a 
»Tuliet's first appearance, has been a novelty by which the Opera 
has profited, lately — no seat being vacant except those of the 
very fashionable subscribers. Great interest was felt to see how 
the vehement prima donna would make love in hose and doublet, 
and she, at least, satisfied curiosity as to her probable idea of 
what enarp-y is usually expected. She did it like a man. The 
absence of petticoats was no embarrassment to her usual locomo- 
tive uncousciousnoss, and, indeed, if her " meacs of getting over 
the ground" had been used to daylight all their lives, they could 
not have stiidod about with promptitude more easy and fearless. 
She played admirably, and sang — with that luscious satisfying- 
ness to the car, which a ripe apricot gives to the throat in a sum- 
mer noon. So fruity and sensuous a voice we certainly never 
have heard, as this of Parodi. The low notes which are so 
remarkable, and which she seems to undervalue, (as people often 
undervalue their best gifts,) found their proper occasion under 
the hat and feathers of Romeo, and drew a murmur of delight 
from the audience, whenever they ploughed up the mellow 
cadences of adolescence for the ear of the blushing Juliet. We 
nia}' add, by the way, that the moustache was very becoming to 
Pa-odi's short uppei- lip, though, perhaps, it is hardly evangelical 
• to admire it — the Bible declaring (Deuteronomy xxii. 5,) that 
'' the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man." 

Of iliis V\^biting, the debutante, the critics have left us no- 
thing to say. She was dressed charmingly, looked pretty, sang 
correctly, and was vociferously applauded. The audience called 



238 JULIET IN A PIE. 



her on the stage after each Act, and there was a hearty laugh at 
the consistent gallantry with which Parodi-Romeo picked up the 
bouquets and presented them lovingly to Juliet — half of them, at 
least, intended doubtless for herself. It was in these stoopings- 
down, by the way, that her movements made their only betrayal 
of the disguise — the knee-joints bending woman-esquely inwards 
instead of man-ishly outwards — in all other points the gallant 
prima donna acting as any gentleman would do in her place. 

We were prepared, of course, with the rest of the audience, to 
feel very pensive over Juliet's entombment ; but the resemblance 
of the sarcophagus to a cold French pie, caused a general smile^ 
which was suddenly turned into a laugh when two attendants 
bustled in, like waiters at a hotel, and took off the cover for 
Eomeo — disclosing apparently, a demoiselle a la crtme^ served up 
with the delicacy of things at a cook's window in Paris. The 
snowy white muslin, puffed up above the edges of the brown 
crust, looked really as if it might be taken up in spoonsful, and 
eaten, as " trifles" are. 

The more we hear Parodi, the more we deplore the prospect 
of her return to Europe. We are certain that we shall have no 
one to fill her place — take her, altogether, as an actress, singer, 
and artist of indomitable energy and adaptability. She is a 
treasure worth taking some pains to keep this side the water. 



TRUFFI. 

Madame Truffi-Benedetti has reappeared, and sang, in 
" Parisina," to a better house than most of those drawn by 
Parodi. She was enthusiastically applauded, and sang and 
played well — though she disappointed us, we must own, by not 
doing half she could do — a rctemv which we trusted that matri- 
mony and Parodi's example would have overcome. The secret 
of it is, we suspect, that she is too happy a woman. There are 
closed fountains of tears that must be broken up, and place left 
for the deeper and angrier passions, before she can become pos- 
sessed entirely by the spirit of tragedy. And yet, her capabilities 
are so visible ! It is so manifest that the stuff for a great actress 
and singer is in her ! With her remarkable beauty of person, 
her other sufficient gifts could be so advantageously developed ! 
Ys there no chance of her being made unhappy enough to be 
qualified for the laurels that await her .? Would not looser 
dresses, and a glass of champagne before coming upon the stagOj 
give this superb bud of genius the impulse to unfold } Charming 
as she is, and many as are her admirers, Signora Truffi must be 
much more before her best appreciators will be contented. 



•EDGAR POE. 

The ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits iirYAvjfled in on& 
bc-iy, equally powerful and having the comp^e';p mastery by 
turns — of one man, that is to say, inhabited by bo'Ji a devil and 
an angel — seems to have been realized, if all we hear is true, in 
the character of the extraordinary man whose name we have 
written above. Our own impression of the nature of Edgar Poe, 
differing, in some important degree, however, from that which has 
been generally conveyed in the notices of his death, let us, before 
telling what we personally know of him, copy a graphic and 
highly finished portraiture, from the pen of Dr. Eufus W. 
Griswold, which appeared in a recent number of the Tribune : — 

" Edgar, Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sund-ay, October 
7th. This announcement wilf startle many, but few will be grieved by it. 
The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had 
readers in England, and in seA-'eral of the states of Continental Europe ; but 
he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested 
principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its 
most brilliant but erratic stars." 

^ Tr""^ -If TV ^ ^ w ^ ^ ^ TV 

"His conversation was at times almost supra-mortal in its eloquence. 
His voicf was modulated with astonishing skill, and his large and variably 



POE'S CONVERSATION. 241 



expressive eyes looked repose or shot fiery tumult into theirs who listened, 
while his own face glowed, or was changeless in pallor, as his imagination 
quickened his blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was 
from the worlds which no m.ortals can see but with the vision of genius. 
Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply defined in terms 
of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary logic, 
and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations 
in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the m:st airy 
and delicious beauty — so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the 
attention which was yielded to him was chained till it stood among his 
wonderful creations — till he himself dissolved the spell, and brought his 
hearers back to common and base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions 
of the ignoblest passion. 

" He was at all times a dreamer — dwelling in ideal realms — ^in heaven or 
in hell — peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his brain. He 
walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct 
curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer, (never for himself, for he 
felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned, but) for their happiness 
who at the moment were objects of his idolatry ; — or, with his glances 
introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face shrouded in 
gloom, he would brave the wildest storms ; and all night, with drenched 
garments and arms beating the winds and rains, would speak as if to spirits 
that at such times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn close by 
whose portrait his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his 
constitution subjected him — close by the Aidenn where were those he loved 
— the Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful glimpses, as its gates 
opened to receive the less fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin 
did not involve the doom of death. 

"He seemed, except Ar.-hen some fitful pursuit subjugated his will and 
engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some controlling 
sorrow. The remarkable poem of The Raven was probably much more 
nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were very intimate with 
him, a reflection and an echo of his own history. He was that bird's 

"' Unhappy master, 

Whom unmerciful Disaster 
11 



242 CHARACTER IN WRITINGS. 



Followed fast and followed faster, 

Till his songs the burden bore — 
Till the dirges of his hope, the 

Melancholy burden bore 
Of ' Never, nevermore.' ' 

" Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his works, 
whatever their design, traces of his personal character: elements of his 
im^mortal being, in which the individual survives the person. While we 
read the pages of the Fall of the House of Usher, or of Mesmeric Revelations, 
we see in the solemn and stately gloom which invests one, and in the subtle 
metaphysical analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncracies — of what was 
most remarkable and peculiar — in the author's intellectual nature. But we 
see here only the better phases of his nature, only the symbols of his juster 
action, for his haish experience had depiived him of all faith, in man or 
woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of 
the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This 
conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. 
Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the 
sharpness of his intellect was not. of that kind which enabled him to cope 
with villainy, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the 
success of honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian in 
Bulwer's novel of " The Caxtons." Passion, in him, comprehended many 
of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could 
not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of 
wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural 
advantages of this poor boy — his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit 
tl:at breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere — had raised his constitu- 
tional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to 
admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious — bad enough, but 
not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold 
repellent cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed 
to him no moral susceptibility ; and, what was more remarkable in a proud 
nature, little or nothing, of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid 
excess, that desire to rise which is vilgarly called ambition, but no wish for 



ANNABEL LEE. 243 



the esteem or the love of his species ; only the hard wish to succeed- — ^not 
shine, not serve — succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world 
which galled his self-conceit. 

" We have suggested the influence of his aims and vicissitudes upon his 
literature. It was more conspicuous in his later than in his earlier writings. 
Nearly all that he wrote in the last two or three years — including much of 
his best poetry — was in some sense biographical; in draperies of his imagina- 
tion, those who had taken the trouble to trace his steps, could perceive, but 
slightly .concealed, the figure of himself. 

"There are, perhaps, some of our readers who will understand the 
allusions of the following beautiful poem. Mr. Poe presented it in MS. to 
the writer of these paragraphs, just before he left New York, recently, 
reniarking that it was the last thing he had written: 

ANNABEL LEE. 

" It was many and many a year ago. 
In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
Than to love and he loved by me. 

" / was a child and she was a child, 

In this kingdom by the sea ; 
But we loved with a love that was more than love— 

I and my Annabel Lee — 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 

" And this was the reason that, long ago, 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling . 

My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
So that her high-born kinsmen came 

And bore her away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulchre 

In this kingdom by the sea. 



244 SKETCH OF POE. 



"The angels, not balf so happy in heaven, 

Went envying her and me — 
Yes ! — that v^-as the reason (as all men know, 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 

Chilling and Idiling my Annabel Lee. 

" But our love, it was stronger by far than the love 
Of those who were older than we — 
Of many far wiser than we — 
And neither the angels in heaven above 
Nor the demons down under the sea. 
Can never dissever my soul from the soul 
Of the beautiful A nnabel Lee : 

" For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreaur 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee . 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride, 

In her sepulchre there by the sea — 

In her tomb by the sounding sea." 

Apropos of the disparaging portion of the above well-writtai 
sketch, let us truthfully say : — 

Some four or five years since, when editing a daily paper in 
this city, Mr. Poe was employed by us, for several months, as 
critic and sub-editor. This was our first personal acquaintance 
with him. He resided with h^s wife and mother, at Fordham, a 
few miles out of town, but was at his desk in the office, from nine 
in the morning till the evening paper went to press. With the 
highest admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone 
for more than ordinary irregularity, wc were led by common 
report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and 



PERSONAL HABITS. 245 



occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time weiat on, 
however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. "With 
his pale, beautiful and intellectual face, as a reminder of what 
genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him 
always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request 
that he would not probe too deep in a ci-iticism, or that he would 
erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against 
society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented — far 
more yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably 
sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead in another 
"periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment with 
us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but one 
presentment of the man — a quiet, patient, industrious and most 
gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good 
feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability. 

Residing as he did in the country, we never met Mr. Poe in 
hours of leisure ; but he frequently called on us afterwards at our 
place of business, and we met him often in the street — invariably 
the same sad-mannered, winning and refined gentleman, such as 
we had always known him. It was by rumor only, up to the day 
of his death, that we knew of any other development of manner 
or character. We heard, from one who knew him well, (what 
should be stated in all mention of his lamentable irregularities,) 
that, with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, 
the demon became uppermost, and, though none of the usual 
signs of intoxication were visible, his icill was palpably insane. 
Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such 
times, and seeking his acquaintances with his wonted look and 
memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase of his 
natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insultiujO' 



246 LETTER FROM POE. 



arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed character, we 
repeat, it was never our chance to see him. We know it from 
hearsay, and we mention it in connection with this sad infirmity 
of physical constitution ; which puts it upon very nearly the 
ground of a temporary and almost irresponsible insanity. 

The arrogance, vanity and depravity of heart, of which Mr. 
Poe was generally accused, seem, to us, referable altogether to 
this reversed phase of his character. Under that degree of 
intoxication which only acted upon him by demonizing his sense 
of truth and right, he- doubtless said and did much that was 
wholly irreconcilable with his better nature ; but, when himself, 
and as we knew him only, his modesty and unaffected humility, as 
to his own deservings, were a constant charm to his character. 
His letters (of which the constant application for autographs has 
taken from us, we are sorry to confess, the greater poi'tion) 
exhibited this quality very strongly. In one of the carelessly 
written notes of which we chance still to retain possession, for 
instance, he speaks of " The Raven" — that extraordinary poem 
which electrified the world of imaginative readers, and has become 
the type of a school of poetry of its own — and, in evident earnest, 
attributes its success to the few words of commendation with 
which we had prefaced it in this paper. It will throw light on 
his sane character to give a literal copy of the note : — 

" FoRDiiAM, April 20, 1849. 

"My DT3AR Willis : — The poem which I enclose, and which I am so vain 
as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just published in a paper 
for which sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. It pays well 
as times go — but unquestionably it ought to pay ten prices ; for whatever I 
send it I feel I am consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses 
accompanying this, may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them 



EVIDENCE OF HEART. 247 



to light in the Home Journal? If you can oblige me so far as to copy 

them, I do not think it will he necessary to say 'From the ^ — ^that 

would be too bad ; — and, perhaps, ' From a late paper,' would do. 

" I have not forgotten how a ' good word in season' from you made ' The 
Raven,' and made ' Ulalume," (which, by-the-way, people have done me the 
honor of attributing to you,) therefore I ivould ask you, (if I dared,) to say 
something of these lines — if they please you. Truly yours ever, 

" Edgar A. Poe." 

In double proof — of his earnest disposition to do the best for 
himself, and of the trustful and grateful nature which has been 
denied him — we give another of the only three of his notes which 
we chance to retain : — 

" FoRDHAM, January 22, 1848. 

" My dear Mr. Wili-is : — I am about to make an effort at re-establishing 
myself in the literary world, and feel that I may depend upon your aid. 

" My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called " The Stylus :" but it 
would be useless to me, even when established, if not entirely out of the 
control of a publisher. I mean, therefore, to get up a Journal which shall 
be my oiim, at all points. With this end in view, I must get a list of, at 
least, five hundred subscribers to begin with : — nearly two hundred I have 
already. I propose, however, to go South and West, among my personal 
and literary friends — old college and West Point acquaintances — and see 
what I can do. In order to get the means of taking the first step, I propose 
to lecture at the Society Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February — and, 
that there may be no cause of squabbling, my subject shall not be literary at 
all. I have chosen a broad text — " The Universe." 

" Having thus given you the facts of the case, I leave all the rest to the 
suggestions of your own tact and generosity. Gratefully — most gratefully — 
" Your friend always, Edgar A. Poe." 

Brief, and chance-taken, as these letters are, we think they 
sufficiently prove the existence of the very qualities denied to Mr. 
Poe— humility, willingness to persevere, belief in another's 



248 GUARDIAN TO GENIUS. 



kindness, and capability of cordial and grateful friendsLip. 
Such he assuredly was, when sane. Such only he has invariably 
seemed to us, in all we have happened personally to know of 
him, through a friendship of five or sis years. And so much 
easier is it to believe what we have seen and known, than what 
we hear of only, that we remember him but with admiration and 
respect^ — these descriptions of him, when morally insane, seeming 
to us like portraits, painted in sickness, of a man we have only 
known in health. 

But there is another, more touching, and far more forcible 
evidence that there was goodness in Edgar Poe. To reveal it, 
we are obliged to venture upon the lifting of the veil which 
sacredly covers grief and refinement in poverty — but we think it 
may be excused, if, so, we can brighten the memory of the poet, 
even were there not a more needed and immediate service which 
it may render to the nearest link broken by his death. 

Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe's removal to this city was by 
a call which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us 
as the mother of his wife. She was in search of employment for 
him, and she excused her errand by mentioning that he was ill, 
that her daughter was a confirmed invalid, and that their circum- 
stances were such as compelled her taking it upon herself. The 
countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with an 
evidently complete giving up of her life to privation and sorrow- 
ful tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging its plea, her 
long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined manners, 
and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the claims and 
abilities of her son, disclosed at once the presence of one of 
those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be. It was 
a hard fate that she was watchino; over. Mr. Poe wrote with 



TOUCHING LETTER. 249 



fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular 
level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty, and, 
with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest necessaries 
of life. Winter after winter, for years, the most touching sight 
to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless minister to genius, 
thinly and insufficiently clad, going from office to office with a 
poem, or an article on some literary subject, to sell — sometimes 
simply pleading in a broken voice that he was il], and beggmg for 
him — mentioning nothing but that " he was ill," whatever might 
be the reason for his writing nothing — and never, amid all her 
tears and recitals of distress, suffering one syllable to escape her 
lips that could convey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a 
lessening of piide in Lis genius and good intentions. Her daugh- 
ter died, a year and a half since, but she did not desert him. 
She continued his ministering angel — living witli him — caring for 
him — guarding him against exposure, and, when he was carried 
away by temptation, amid grief and the loneliness of feelings 
unreplied to, and awoke from his self-abandonment prostrated in 
destitution and suffering, beggmg for him still. If woman's 
devotion, born with a first love and fed with human passion, 
hallow its object, as it is allowed to do, what does not a devotion 
like this — pure, disinterested and holy as the watch of an invisible 
spirit — say for him who inspired ii :" 

We have a letter before us, writtop bv this lady, Mrs. Clemm, 
on the morning in which she heard of the death of this object of 
her untiring care. It is merely a request that we would call upon 
her, but we will copy a few of its words — sacred as its privacy is 
— to warrant the truth of the picture we have di-awn above, and 
add force to the appeal we wish to make for her : — 

* * " I have this morning heaid of the death of my darling Eddie. » 
. 11* 



250 LOVE AT A GRAVE. 



* Can you give me any circumstances or particulars. * * * Oh ! do 

not desert your poor friend in this bitter affliction. * * Ask Mr. to 

come, as I must see him to deliver a message to him from my poor Eddie. 

* * I need not ask you to notice his death and to speak vi^ell of him. I 
know you will. But say what an affectionate son he was to me, his poor 
desolate mother. * * * 

To hedge round a grave with respect, what choice is there, 
between the relinquished wealth and honors of the world, and the 
story of such a woman's unrewarded devotion ! Risking what we 
do, in delicacy, by making it public, we feel — other reasons aside — 
that it betters the world to make known that there are such 
ministrations to its erring and gifted. What we have said will 
speak to some hearts. There are those who will be glad to know 
how the lamp, whose light of poetry has beamed on their far-away 
recognition, was watched over with care and pain — that they may 
send to her, who is- more darkened than they by its extinction, 
some token of their sympathy. She is destitute, and alone. If 
any, far or near, will send to us what may aid and cheer her 
through the remainder of her life, we will joyfully place it in her 
hands- 

We have occupied so much room that we defer speaking 
critically of Mr. Poe's writings, as we intended to do when we 
sat down, and this, and some more minute details of biography, 
we shall hope to find time for, hereafter. 



MR. WHIPPLE. 

The size of parcels of thought is subject to fashion, in a way 
that is curiously irrational. There was a time when the " Essay" 
was the only shape of literature in vogue. Subjects which it 
takes a whole book to treat, suffered then, as subjects suffer now 
which are spread into two-volume novels, though only properly 
the stuff for an Essay. An accidental novelty of our time, the 
delivery of " Lectures," has fortunately restored the obsolete 
thought-shape of Essay, and to it we owe the delightful book be- 
fore us, which would have made the author a brilliant reputation 
in the days of Addison and the Sjpectator. 

The most precious philosophy of life, and nicest observation, is 
often buried deep in the brain of a merchant, or a business man, 
unused, because to produce it would be " to write a book," and 
that is too much of an undertaking. Intellect is a sea of which 
books are but the chance-named inlets formed by the shaping of 
the shore — but we are apt to forget that there are boundless deeps 
of as bright water, only nameless because not separated and im- 
prisoned within traceable limits. How many men there are, for 
whom th/? smoke of a cigar creates a medium of thought, and, 
while a friend listens and the white clouds cluster and thin away, 



252 VALUE OF LECTURES. 



they will give shape to clear- sightpd generalizations on human 
action, pierce motives, glance far ahead to probabilities, and, in 
fact, give all of an Essay but the inking over of the words to pre- 
serve them ! Such men are in every oosnmtmity, and it should 
be (if we may make a suggestion we have often thought of mak- 
ing) the business of " Lyceums" and " Lecture Committees," to 
procure for many what these thinkers give to one — to look up 
the men who have " views of their own," and offer them induce- 
ments to lecture. In this way the public would get at soixtething 
which were else lost, and something original and new — whereas, 
by the lectures of professed authors, they onl}'- get some slight 
variation of the thoughts they find in books and newspapers. 

The positive day or the positive night of a subject is easy to 
handle ; but there are dawns and twilights of transition, in all 
subjects, which it requires the discrimination of a master to de- 
fine and portray, and these are the regions for Essay-writing. 
The choice of subjects in the volume before us shows that Mr. 
Whipple has thus chosen his topics from matters of most difficult 
analysis : — " Intellectual Health and Disease," " Authors in their 
Relations to Life," "Wit and Humor," " The Ludicrous Side 
of Life," " Genius," etc. He is, as our' readers probably know, 
a business man, who does his thinking " on the Rialto," and as an 
aside from commerce ; but, as those who read these Essaj^s will 
see, he has the keen insight and philosoi^hic comprehension which 
would have coujsed well in any harness of literature. Bostor 
should be proud of such an Essayist among her merchants. 



GEORGE P. MORRIS, THE SONG WRITER. 

[The following letter was written to Mr. Graham, in compliance with a 
request for a written sketch of Morris, (the author's partner in the editorship 
of the Home Journal) to accompany a portrait of him, published in Graham's 
Magazine : — ] 

My Dear Sir : — To ask me for mj idea of Morris, is 
like asking the left hand's opinion of the dexterity of the right. 
I have lived so long with the " Brigadier" — ^known him so 
intimately — worked so constantly at the same rope, and thought 
so little of ever separating from him, (except by precedence of 
ferriage over the Styx,) that it is hard to shove him from me to 
the perspective distance — hard to shut my own partial eyes and 
look at him through other people's. I will try, however, and, as 
it is done with but one foot off from the treadmill of my ceaseless 
vocation, you will excuse both abruptness and brevity. 

Morris is the best known poet of the country, by acclamation, 
not by criticism. He is just what poets would be if they sang, 
like birds, without criticism ; and it is a peculiarity of his fame, 
that it seems as regardless of criticism, as a bird in the air. 
Nothing can stop a song of his. It is very easy to say that they 



254 HEART-LEVEL. 



are easy to do. They have a momentum, somehow, that is 
difficult for others to give, and that speeds them to the far gaol 
of popularity — the best proof consisting in the fact, that he can, 
at any moment, get fifty dollars for a song unread, when the 
whole remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell one to 
the same buyer for a shilling. 

It may, or may not, be one secret of his popularity, but it ia 
the truth — that Morris's heart is at the level of most other 
people's and his poetry flows out by that door. He stands 
breast-high in the common stream of sympathy, and the fine oil 
of his poetic feeling goes from him upon an element it is its 
nature to float upon, and which carries it safe to other bosoms, 
with little need of deep diving or high-flying. His sentiments are 
simple, honest, truthful and familiar ; his language is pure and 
eminently musical, and he is prodigally full of the poetry of 
every-day feeling. These are days when poets try experiments ; 
and, while others succeed by taking the world's breath away with 
flights and plunges, Morris uses his feet to walk quietly with 
Nature. Ninety-nine people in a hundred, taken as they come in 
the census, would find more to admire in Morris's songs than in 
the writings of any other American poet ; and that is a parish, in 
the poetical episcopate, well worthy a wise man's nurture and 
prizing. 

As to the man — Morris, my friend — I can hardly venture to 
" burn incense on his moustache," as the French say — write his 
praises under his very nose — ^but, as far off as Philadelphia, you 
may pay the proper tribute to his loyal nature and manly 
excellences. His personal qualities have made him universally 
popular, but this overflow upon the world does not impoverish 



MORRIS. 



255 



him for his friends. I have outlined a true poet, and a fine 
fellow — fill up the picture to your liking. 

Yours, very truly, 
/ N. P. WILLIS. 

Geo. R. Graham, Esq. 



IRVING. 

We spoke, the o'ther day, of Geoffrey Crayon's having once 
more consented to sit for his picture. Mr. Martin has just 
finished it, and we fancy there has seldom been a more felicitous 
piece of work. It is not only like Irving, but like his books — 
and, though he looks as his books read, (which is true of few 
authors) — and looks like the name of his cottage, Sunnyside — 
and looks like what the world thinks of him — yet a painter might 
have missed this look, and still have made what many would 
consider a likeness. He sits, leaning his head on his hand, with 
the genial, unconscious, courtly composure of expression that he 
habitually wears, and still there is visible the couchant humour 
and philosophical inevitableness of perception, which form .the 
strong under-current of his genius. The happy temper and the 
strong intellect of Irving — the joyously indolent man and the 
arousably brilliant author — are both there. As a picture, it is a 
fine specimen of Art. The flesh is most skilfully crayoned, the 
pose excellent, the drawing apparently effortless and yet nicely 
true, and the air altogether Irving-y and gentlemanlike. If well 
engraved, we have him — delightful and famous Geoffrey — as he 
lives, as he is thought to live, as he writes, as he talks, and as he 
ought to be remembered 



JEMY LIND. 

There is great tiaipetition to bs the painter of Jenny Lind, 
Mr. Barnum, we understand, lias engaged a portrait for his 
palace of Iranistan, and we are permitted to mention only the 
fact — not the artist. The applications are numerous for the 
honour of limning her admired countenance. "We should sup- 
pose Grarbeille might make a charming statuette of Jenny Lind 
curtsying. It is then that she is most unlike anybody else, and, 
where character is to be seized, Grarbeille is the master. George 
Flagg is admirable at cabinet portraits, (half the size of life,) and 
has lately finished one of Fanny Kemble, which is a superb piece 
of design and colour. He would paint her well. 

It seems to us that no one, of the dozen engravings purporting 
to represent Jenny Lind, has any reasonable likeness to her, as 
we have seen her. And, indeed, the longer we live, the more we 
are convinced that people see the same features very differently, 
and that one face may make two as different impressions on two 
beholders, as if they had been all the while looking on two differ- 
ent faces. To our notion, Jenny Lind has never been painted 
trul)'. We have seen fifty likenesses of her — in Germany, France, 
England, and Nassau street — and the picture in our mind's eye 
is the likeness of quite another woman. 



258 LIKENESSES OF JENNY LIND. 



The truth is, that Grod never yet lit the flame of a great soul in 
if dark lantern ; and, though the divine lamp burning within 
Jenny Liad may not be translucent to all eyes, it is, to others, 
perfectly visible through the simple windows of her honest face, 
and could be painted — by any artist who could see past the putty 
on the sash. Her living features seem to us illuminated with an 
expression of honest greatness, sublimely simple and unconscious, 
and in no picture of her do we see any trace of this. It is a face, 
to our eye, of singular beauty — ^beauty that goes past one's eye 
and is recognized within — and the pictures of her represent the 
plainest of common-place girls. Why, a carpenter's estimate, 
with the inches of her nose, cheeks, lips and eyes, all cyphered 
up on a shingle, would be as true a likeness of her as most of 
these engravings. Have we no American artist who can give us 
Jenny Lind's face with its expression 7 

We were pained to see, when the fair songstress came forward 
to the lights, that her fatigues, for the past two or three weeks, 
had made their mark upon her. She looked pale and worn, and 
her step and air were saddened and un-elastic. This continued, 
even to the end of her second performance, and we began to have 
apprehensions that she was too indisposed to be equal to her eve- 
ning's task. But, with the cavatina from the Somnambula, the 
inspiration came. She sang it newly, to our ear. It seemed as 
if she had, heretofore, sung always with a reserve of power. This 
was the first time that she had seemed (to us) to give in to the 
character, and allow her soul to pour its impassioned tenderness 
fully upon the dramatic burthen of the music. Could any one, 
who heard that overpowering flood of heart-utterance, (convey- 
ing the mournfulness of a wrongfully accused woman, singing in 



SYMPATHY IN PERSONATION. 259 

her dream,) doubt, afterwards, the fervor and intensity of the 
nature of Jenny Lind ? More eloquent and passionate sounds 
came never from human lips, we are well persuaded. If she 
ever lacks in the " passiouateness" called for by Italian music, or 
suffers by comparison with Grisi and others in this respect, we 
shall believe, hereafter, that it is only because she cannot consent 
to embark passiouateness on the tide of the character she repre- 
sents. A Lucrezia Borgia's " passion," for example, she would 
not portray with a full abandonment — a Somnambula's, she 
would. Her capability of expressing feeling — pure feeling — 
to its uttermost depth and elevation, is beyond cavil, it seems 
to us. 

We found, after Jenny Lind had gone from the city, on her 
first visit, that we retained no definite remembrance of her fea- 
tures. We had nothing by which we could assure ourselves 
whether one likeness was more true than another ; and, indeed, 
no one of them — not even a daguerreotype — ^was reasonably like 
our fcding of what a likeness should be. We determined, this 
time, first to study the lineaments, by themselves, and then, if 
possible, to see how so marvellous a transformation was brought 
about, as is necessary to present to the eye her frequent looks of 
inspiration and even of exalted beauty. Our close scrutiny satis- 
fied us, that it is only by looking at her features separately, that 
any degi-ee of truthfulness can be found in the daguerreotype 
likenesses which have been published. The entire look^ taken in 
connection with the rest of her figure,^ though she only stands be- 
fore the audience waiting the completion of the prelude to her 
Kong, represents a totally difftirent image from the one your 
mind has received by looking at her picture. It is fortunate that 
it is so — careless as she is about letting any body picture her, as 



260 GENIUS AND NATURE. 

he pleases. She comes to every eye with a new impression. All 
the engravings in the world do not anticipate, for you, any portion 
of the novelty of a first sight of her. So, as long as she sings, 
there will be no exhaustion to the freshness of her impression 
upon audiences. 

Heavy as Jenny Lind's features are, there is no superfluity, in 
repose, which does not turn out to have been very necessary to 
the expression in excitement. That so massive a nose can have 
the play of the thin nostrils of a race-horse, is one of the start- 
ling discoveries you make, in watching her as she sings. Her 
eyes are, perhaps, beautiful at all times — and it struck us as their 
peculiarity that they never become staggered with her excite- 
ment. From the highest pitch of rapt bewilderment for the 
listener, those large steadfast eyes return to their serene, lambent, 
fearless earnestness — as if thtrt sat the angel intrusted with the 
ministry she is exercising, and heaven lay in calm remembrance 
behind them. And the same rallying power is observable in the 
action of the under lip, which contorts with all the pliability and 
varying beauty of the mouth of the Tragic Muse, and, from its 
expressive curves, resumes its dignity of repose, with an ease and 
apparent unconsciousness of observation that is well worthy of 
study by player or sculptor. It is curious, how, in all the 
inspired changes of this mobile physiognomy, its leading im- 
print, of an utter simplicity of goodness, is never lost. She 
does not sublimate away from it. Through the angel of rapt 
music, as through the giver of queenly bounties, is seen honest 
Jenny Lind. She looks forever true to the ideal for which the 
world of common hearts has consented to love her. 



SOCIETY, 



FASHION AND INTELLECT IN NEW YOM. 

How to add the genius of New York to the society lohich exer- 
cises its gayeties and hospitalities, is a problem, to the solution of 
which, as our readers know, we have once or twice put out pre- 
paratory feelers. Knowing, as we do, that there is, resident in 
New York, material for as intellectual, sparkling and brilliant a 
society as exists in the world — and that this material is wholly 
unsought, and almost wholly unrepresented, in the circles most 
courted by inhabitants and most seen by strangers — we feel as if 
the excellent stones, which worthily form the base of high civiliza- 
tion, were being forgetfully continued into the superstructure ; 
and that it is time to suggest the want, of such as are chiselled, to 
carry out the upper design of social architecture — to build fitly 
into its columns, and point its pinnacles and arches. 

New York (we mention it as a matter of news) is rich in delight- 
ful people. What we mean by " delightful people" cannot well be 
conveyed in one definition ; but they may be loosely described as 
those who think new as they talk, and do not talk stale as they 
echo or remember. There are such in all professions — merchants, 
who slip Wall street from their tongues and faces as they pass 
Bleecker, going home — lawyers who put on and take off 'cuteness 



264 POCKET ARISTOCRACY. 



and suspiciousness with their office-coat — politicians whose minds, 
though only one-eared for politics, will open both ears to any- 
thing else — fresh-minded and thought-recognizing men, of every 
■ kind of business — but they are rather less than more valued by 
their own sex for being thus much " above their business," and 
there is no recompensing preference of them (shall we say it ?) by 
the society standards of our " fashionable women." They are a 
kind of men, too, who will go no-where " through a stooping 
door," and whom Society must seek. Consequently — like the 
classes formed altogether by predominance in intellectual qualities 
— they are "not in society." 

We refer, in this last sentence, to those whose success (in their 
pursuit for a livelihood) depends on being more gifted than other 
men with the rarer and higher faculties of the mind — artists, 
authors, journalists, architects, professional scholars, and musical 
and dramatic celebrities. There are enough of these, at any one 
time, in New York, to furnish every party that is given — every 
circle that meets, in any shape — with its fair, or European, pro- 
portion of taste and intellect. But, the fashionable world is 
almost entirely withont " this little variety" of citizen — for, 
artists, authors, journalists, " stars," and that sort of people, (as 
any young lady with a two-thousand-dollar necklace will tell you) 
are " not in society." 

It is not that the door is shut very tight, by the Pocket Aristoc- 
racy, against these aristocrats of the brain, but various small 
causev^ combine to keep it closed. The master of a new-made 
fortune, for instance, is very apt to feel, like Milton's Satan, that 

it is 

" Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven," 

and he willingly invites no class of persons to his house, by whom 



BRAIN AND MONEVr. g^S 



his ostentation will be undervalued, or whose critical eyes will be 
likely to see a want of harmony between house and owner. The 
mistress of a fashionable house, on the other hand, is by no 
means sure enough of her position to run any risks ; and, though 
she is educated, as her husband is not, and would very much pre- 
fer an intellectual man as a chance companion in a stage-coach, 
she cannot venture to dull the " stylish air" of her party by the 
presence of any one ill-drest — any one that the dandies might 
mention slightingly as one of " the sort of people that were there" 
— nor any one who does not visit certain families to whose level 
she aspires. The unmarried daughters are very young, and, if 
they have any voice in the matter, they prefer the best-gloved, 
best waltzing-partneis, and the beaux who are likeliest to " have 
a team of their own" at Newport or Saratoga. 

These, and twenty other reasons, prevent intellectual men from 
Icing sought by the recognized Upper Society of New York ; 
and, as Intellect keeps modestly back— partly from being able, 
usually, to make no return of hosj)itality, and partly from having 
too much pride to run any hazard of mortification — they will not 
seek it, as Vulgarity will ; and the chances are, that the two 
Aristocracies of Brain and Pocket will not, by any " natural 
course of things," come together, in this our day and generation. 

Of the two sides of a door, the comparative pleasantness is, of 
course, a matter of opinion ; and the outside of a coarse mil- 
lionaire's would be easily voted, by intellectual men, that of the 
best society, hut that charming women, divine music, costly 
flowers and lights, pictures and statuary, are on the inside, with 
the iJoney. There is no doubt, therefore, in the mind of any 
man of sense, that the inside of a rich man's door is desirable, 
"vhether he is, or is not, himself, the drawback to its agreeable- 
12 



266 PARISIAN REMEDY. 



ness. It is an object, we presume, quite worthy of advocacy in 
print, to bring about a freedom of the halls of Croesus to Intellect ; 
to open the enchantments of Wealth — the treasures of Art which 
it collects, the music and perfume which it buys, and the beauty, 
grace and polish which it brings together — to the class which, of 
these luxuries, has, a thousand-fold, the highest appreciation. 
This has been done in other countries. It should be done in 
America — though, in our kaleidoscope reverses and somersets of 
position, the proper influence must be brought perpetually to bear 
on men of new-made respectability and fortunes. But, let us 
venture to suggest an idea for the quicker pose of the wanting 
figure of Intellect upon our statue-less pedestal of Wealth. 

Till the society of men and women of talent is more attractive 
than its own — or, at least, till they have graces and attractions, 
among themselves, that it would wUlingly borrow — ^Fashion wiU 
never trouble itself to seek guests among those superior to itself 
by nature. What we want is what they have in Paris — 
a society separate from fashion — the admission to which would 
be a compliment to the quality of a man — which would give 
its entertainments with humbler surroundings, but with wit, 
sparkle and zest unknown to the japonicas and diamonds — a 
freer society as to etiquette and dress — and a circle of which 
the power to contribute to its pleasure and brilliancy would be 
the otherwise un-catechised pass. Vice and vicious people need 
not necessarily belong to this circle, as they do, possibly, to the 
" artistic circles" of Paris. Though the manners are freer in 
these entertainments than in the drawing-rooms of titled society, 
there is nothing which could offend propriety ; and gayety, by 
this freedom, is but stripped of its unmeaning trammels. As we 
said before. New York is rich in delightful people — just the peo- 



SOCIETY IN INDIVIDUALS. 267 



pie for the formation of a rival aristocracy of mind. There are 
beautiful, accomplished and gifted women, who are known singly 
to artists and authors, journalists and scholars ; and who would 
come where they might meet these fresh-minded men — women 
who, at present, have no sphere in which they can shine, but who 
are as capable, perhaps, as the most brilliant belles of society, of 
the charming interchanges for which the sex is worshipped. 
There are dramatic artists, musical stars, foreigners of taste look- 
ing for a society of mind, critics, poets and strangers of eminence 
from other cities — all of whom might combine with the superior 
men among our lawyers, merchants and politicians, and form a 
new level of intercourse, of which New York is at this moment 
capable, and which would soon compare favorably, in interest 
and excitement, with the most fascinating circles abroad. 

To such an arena for mind, taste and beauty only — we repeat — 
Fashion would soon come and beg to " splinter a lance," and thus, 
hy rivalry and not hy favor ^ might the door of "Wealth be thrown 
open to those superior by nature. 



WANT OF MARRIED BELLES IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 

Duke, — '• For women are as roses, whose fair flower 

Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. 

Viola. — ''■ And so they are : alas that it is so — 

To die ev'n when they to perfection grow !" 

Twdfth Night. 

Let us shape out a similitude to outline first, a little, what we 
have to say : — 

Our entrance to this life and our entrance to the next, are the 
dawns of two successive mornings of the days of eternity. Our 
forenoon is childhood ; our noon brings us to adult completeness ; 
our afternoon and sunset are the enjoyment of the ripening of fore- 
gone hours ; our evening is the thoughtful and willing relinquish- 
in ent of glaring day, the loss of which is compensated by the 
fainter and purer lights which beckon with twinkles from the sky 
above us ; and our midnight and darkest hour is the old age in 
which we wait for another morning. 

But these portions of our day of life are capable, to a certain 
extent, of differing in their distribution of enjoyment — as the dia- 



Married privileges, 269 

tribution of light in the common day differs, with climate and 
atmospheric changes. Leaving, to the fancy of the reader, the 
tracing out of other obvious analogies— (how, for instance, a 
morning of lowering sky will protract the forenoon's ripening, and 
how clouds may hasten our evening and hide the stars from our 
lengthened midnight)— let us select the common phenomenon of 
a November day in London, -when there is no daylight till an hour 
before noon, and when, an hour after noon, the lamps are lit and 
night prematurely commences. For, this corresponds, with curi- 
ous truthfulness, we think, to the duration of the afternoon^ (or 
period of active enjoyment,) in the day of female life in America. 

Poetry aside, the cultivated woman is put earlier "on the 
shelf," in this country, than in any other— obliged by public opin- 
ion, that is to say, to give up, soon after the birth of a first child, 
all active participation in society, and devote herself to the cares 
of her nursery, or (in addition,) to such ostentations of dress and 
establishment as may be prompted by the necessities or vanities 
of the family position or ambition. Display and the domestic 
virtues, in fact, are all a woman has to choose from, who wishes 
to pass, in common acceptation, for " an exemplary wife." 

But does not woman, at any age when she can exercise it, owe 
a share of her time, attention, and influence, to general society ? 
Or, if she has no social duties (out of her own family,) has she not 
social privileges, if she chooses to avail herself of them .? May 
not a married woman, consistently with all her obligations to hus- 
band and children, be an object of attention and attraction to a 
well chosen circle of acquaintance— shining by her powers of con- 
versation, her elegance and her powers of pleasing .? Is it not 
important to daughters, that their mothers should go into society 
witA them, as companions- share in their gayeties and in the ad. 



8T0 WOMAN'S SWEETEST AGE. 



miration they excite — be intimate with their intimates — ^sympa- 
thetic enough with girlish tastes and interests, to be their confi- 
dants and advisers ? 

The most delightful age of woman, in cultivated society, is be- 
tween the noon and the evening of her life — when her attentive- 
ness of mind is calm ; when her discriminations are rational ; 
when her self-approbation knows what it receives, and her prefer- 
ence knows what it bestows ; when she is wise enough to be an 
adviser and counsellor to a male friend, and yet attractive enough 
to awaken no less respect than admiration. It is this most charm- 
ing and most partake-able period of a woman's life that is lost to 
American society. The exchange of thought and feeling, in 
fashionable circles, is carried on, on the female side, by girls, with 
only school knowledge and their natural instincts to guide them ; 
while the mothers, (who should be the inseparable stems and 
leaves of these half-blown flowers,) are at home, limiting their 
completed powers to the cares which a nursery-maid would do as 
Well, or appearing occasionally at a large party, to sit, unattended 
to, against the wall. The general tone of society — its tastes, 
judgments, partialities and prejudices — are shaped and colored 
accordingly. Bread-and-butter standards prevail. An intelli- 
gent foreigner, who was taken to a stylish party in New York, on 
his first arrival, and introduced to the leading beaux and belles, 
is said to have remarked, toward the close of the evening : — 
" Charming children ! but where are the grown-up people.^" 

It is the men, however, who lose most by this post-nuptial 
"taking of the veil." The majority of youths admire without 
choosing. They pay attention where it is expected, or encouraged. 
Not one in a thousand has a mind or taste of his own, or would 
venture to show any natural instinct of preference, unsupported 



MARRIED FRIENDS. 271 



t>y the attention of others to the same object. For an hour of 
mere conversation at a party, or the exchanging of sentiment in 
a rational friendship with a superior woman, there is little or no 
taste. But it might be otherwise. It might be " the fashion" 
for young men to have married friends as well as dancing part- 
ners — to value talking with lovely and thoughtful mothers as well 
as flirting with pretty and giddy daughters — to admire and ap- 
preciate the sex, in its ripeness and completeness, as well as in 
its immaturity and thoughtlessness. This would easily be brought 
about, if cultivated middle-aged women would dress and go to 
parties to please and to be admired — the refined, among middle- 
aged men^ of course coming out from their retirement, (when there 
was anything to come for,) and society thus gaining two varieties 
of contributors to its gaiety — varieties, besides, which, in other 
and older countries, are prized as giving a brilliant circle all its 
value. What the effect of this new two-fold admixture would be, 
on the tone of the general polite intercourse of New York, and 
especially on the characters of young men and young women 
whose minds and tastes are materially influenced by what +hey en- 
counter in society, it is easy for the most casual observer to 
divine. 



SHOULD MARRIED LADIES GO INTO SOCIETY WITH 
THEIR DAUGHTERS? 

One or two of our gentlemen subscribers have written to us 
rather angrily, and several newspapers have commented sneeringly, 
upon a late article in the Home Journal expressing a wish that 
American married ladies would go more into society. In the 
(Spirit in which the guests at an Athenian table threw Diogenes a 
bone when he entered, let us give these gentlemen and critics an 
instance, from natural history, of precisely the condition of male 
and female life which they seem to think desirable. The insect 
coccus J (from which cochineal, kermes, lac-dye, and other pigments 
are made,) is thus described by naturalists : — 

" The males have wings, and, having no care for food, go and come as they 
please. The females have no wings, and live by suction of plants to which 
they fix themselves at an early period of their life and remain immovable 
till death. When impregnated, they spread their bodies over the eggs, and 
so perish into a membrane, or egg, which the young ones break through and 
destroy, in coming into life." 

It seems to be the idea of the Coccusians, who have written to 
us, that woman's mission is fulfilled by dividing her time between 



INSECT COCCUS. 273 



her nursery and her husband. We would publish the articles 
themselves, if thty contained any other essential opinion ; but 
they do not. Let us look, then, for a moment, at the operation 
and influences of this Coccusian destiny of woman. 

A lady who was herself married at seventeen, has a daughter 
sixteen years of age, and four or five younger children. The 
girl is pretty, has given up school and takes music and French 
lessons at home, is fast maturing in figure and womanly ways, and 
begins to be invited to parties and receive calls. Her father is 
all day at his counting-room, and so tired and sleepy in the 
evening, that, if he has no business engagement, he stretches 
himself to sleep in the back parlor, or goes to bed early — leaving 
" the girls" of course to their mother. The mother lives in the 
nursery, except at meal-times or when engaged in household 
duties. Her rocking-chair is her dwelling-place, and there she 
sits all day, sewing upon the " children's things," or tending her 
baby, or talking with her nurses — " at home" to no one except 
" intimate friends who can come up stairs." If she goes out, it 
is to get into a carriage and " do up" a month's calls in a day, or 
to get into an omnibus and " get through with the family 
shopping." Her music, which she acquired at a cost of thou- 
sands of dollars and years of practice, she gave up, after the birth 
of her first baby. She has no time to read, having " la ! more 
important things to do !" and, indeed, with the incessant calls 
upon her attention, from the three or four children who are in the 
same room with her for twelve hours every day, she lives in an 
eternal fatigue of mind, which makes it impossible for her to give 
her thoughts to two pages of a book together. She " does her 
duty to her children" — by keeping the baby out of the fire, 

drilling the multiplication-table into the youngest but one, and 
12* 



274 NEGLECT OF DAUGHTERS. 

mending his trowsers, overlooking the next oldest while she 
learns to sew, and seeing that the still older ones go to school 
with the right books in their satchel, turn their toes out, and 
remember their India-rubbers in wet weather. 

But, meantime, the eldest daughter claims to go to parties like 
other girls of her age, wants a companion for her daily walks, 
goes to the exhibitions and galleries with young men who " have 
not the honor of her mother's acquaintance," has the parlors all 
to herself, as " mother is not dressed and is up stairs with the 
children," and, in short, the girl of sixteen is almost entirely 
without mental or moral guidance. She is mistress of her own 
movements, sent to parties in a carriage by herself because " pa 
does not like ma to go out without him," never talks to father or 
mother of the books she reads or the acquaintances she makes, 
and passes the three or four years, when her perceptions are 
newly wakened and her mind and heart are like wax in their 
readiness to receive impressions, at the mercy of any and every 
chance influence that may come in her way. 

With due deference to the Coccusian system, we think this is 
neglect of the most important of all duties toward a child. 
Nursery duties can be safely delegated — the maternal duties, to a 
girl just ripening to a woman, can not. Uneducated nurses, at a 
dollar a week, can tend babies, mend children's clothes, keep them 
out of mischief and teach them to read and spell. But no hired 
person can be the beloved friend, the companion in walks, the 
attendant to parties, the listener to new sprung thoughts, the 
confidential intimate and sharer of all acquaintance, as a mother 
can be. And, to fulfil this absolutely holy and vital duty to a 
beloved daughter, mothers mufi go into society with them^ and 
must shan in their pursuits, syuipathies and excitements. 



AWKWARD HONORS. 275 



We have spoken, in the article which gave offence to our 
Coccusian friends, of the duty which mature and cultivated 
women owe to the general tone and standards of that society in 
which their daughters mingle — a duty which they cannot discharge 
without going into, and being admired and influential in, that 
same society. Upon this point, too, all the writers upon Female 
Education have written, and we should only repeat in discuss- 
ing it. 

There is often an unconfessed moving-spring, to the opposition 
of a good thing, and we will close with venturing a little guess at 
the possible reason why husbands like their wives to be domestic 
and nothing else : — Is it, perhaps, that, having devoted all their 
youth to money-making, and all their manhood to amassing, they 
have not, themselves, the culture and gentlemanly ease necessary 
to enjoy society, and prefer, therefore, that their wives should 
grow prematurely old as well as they, and mope with them at 
home — choosing, in fact, that the daughters of the family should 
run the risk of motherless companionship and gayety, rather than 
that the wife should receive, in a daughter's company, the refined 
pleasure and admiration which .their own neglect of themselves 
has made them incapable of sharing } 



USAGES OF SOCIETY. 

Ought young girls to be left by mothers to themselves ?— Should those wno 
have incomes of $5000 vie with those who have $25000 ?— In a business 
country should socialities commence near midnight, and end near morn- 
ing?— Should very young children be dressed as expensively as their 
mothers ? etc., etc. 

The sun, without an atmosphere, would shine no more than a 
football, philosophy tells us, and with indefinitely lesser matters 
the analogy holds good, for— to prove it by an instance— we can 
estimate the value of what appears in the Home Journal by the 
radiations of correspondence which immediately run threads of 
responsive and encouraging light between us and our widely 
scattered subscribers. In discussing the position of married wo- 
iiien in this country, and the relation between mothers and 
daughters as to influence and companionship, we have drawn out 
the opinions, on these subjects, from many who seemed only 
waiting for some such hint to express them ; and these form most 
valuable guidance, it will at once be seen, as to our own selection 
of subjects and the manner in which they had best be treated. 
With thanks to all who have written to us, we will reply to one 
which expresses one or two dij0ferences of opinion, and is so well 



GIRLHOOD. 277 



written, withal, ihai;, it could have come only from a person well 
worth listening to. 

The only point in which our correspondent differs from us, is 
the importance of a confidential companionship between mother 
and daughter. 

There is certainly no more important and jealous atrust, of hu- 
man guardianship and management, than that over the innocence 
and well-being of girlhood. Its honor and purity, its grace and 
happiness, constitute the inner sanctuary of every family, the 
watchful pride and anxiety of every brother, the father's deepest 
stake in life's chances of good and evil, the mother's burthen of 
prayer. And it is not alone that girlhood is, of all human phases 
of existence, the loveliest and most like our imaginations of life 
in Heaven — the fairest to look upon and the most rewarding to 
fondness and devotion. There is a deeper as well as more inter- 
ested reason for sleepless watchfulness over its completeness and 
beauty, viz : — the hallowed duties to which it is but the novitiate, 
the type which it is to hand down, of itself and its own present 
nurture and development, in the sacred maternity that lies be- 
yond. Without defining why, every one feels instinctively this 
doubly endeared sacredness of girlhood. Life will be staked in 
defence of it, by the commonest man, ten times quicker than for 
any other interest that can belong to him ; and, in its many in- 
fluences, upon men's pride, upon their sense of beauty, upon 
their affection and their instinctive guardianship, more power is 
exercised by tender girlhood than by any other stage of human 
transition or any combination of human faculties. It is not care- 
lessly, therefore, that we could permit ourselves to take up the 
question of what system -of care and education is best for this 
lovely threshold-time of responsible womanhood, and, in express- 



278 MELTA NYSCRIEM. 



ing what we think of its wants and interests, we must record a 
feeling for our sponsor — that the more we see of life the more 
reverently we look upon our common obligations toward this com- 
paratively passive yet loveliest and most important portion of hu- 
man existence. 

But to come to our subject : — 

Whether young girls should be left to dispose of their own 
hearts, is not the point upon which we differ from our corres- 
pondent. " War to the knife" against all who would cross a 
true love, is, we take it, a precept of the religion of Nature. 
Few will dispute, however, that a choice for life should be made 
with all attainable appreciation and knowledge, and though, in 
an Arcadian state of things, where youths and maidens tend sheep 
together from sunrise till folding-time, they themselves, unaided 
and unadvised, would doubtless be competent choosers, this same 
ornithological simplicity of pairing becomes less advisable, we are 
inclined to think, as the associations of the parties concerned be- 
come less primitive and more " fashionable." 

Let us sketch one, as a copy of very many " self-propelling" 
belle-ships — (trying, first, by the way, to choose such artificial 
names that we shall not be accused of describing individuals.) 

Miss Melta Nyscriem is a very pretty girl, who gave up a long 
sash for a buckle in front, and began to " see company," at 
seventeen. Her mother has had nothing to do with her, since 
she left boarding-school, except to apply to papa for her shop- 
ping money, prescribe for her when she has a cold, and see that 
she sleeps late enough in the morning to make up for being out 
nearly all night at parties. John and Jerusha, the two servants 
who tend the door between them, have strict orders to let in none 
of her young beaux till mamma, who is " never dressed," has had 



BELLES' HABITS. 379 



time to get up stairs after the bell rings, and Miss Melta is " in," 
as a general thing, from twelve till three, and from four till seven. 
Mamma's visit to the kitchen and her own late breakfast in the 
basement, coming off at about the same hour, there is a some- 
thing like a daily confidential interview between them — the 
mother, that is to say, hearing what the daughter chooses to tell, 
of her engagements and her wants, while she, as mistress of the 
house, examines the butcher's bill or decides whether the mutton 
shall be boiled or roasted. This is the last the young lady sees 
of mamma till dinner time ; and, as papa dines oftenest down 
town, and as she is out walking or " with company in the front 
parlor" while he takes his early tea before going " to meet the 
Committee," or going to sleep, they sometimes scarce see each 
other from Sunday to Sunday. 

Mrs. N. has requested her daughter to " keep up her French," 
and Miss Melta has consented — to let her Dictionary and Exer- 
cises lie where she can find them when she has nothing else to do. 
Melta has been bidden, also, to be " select" in her acquaintances 
— which she is, for she selects them herself. At every party she 
is introduced to two or three new partners, and they call, of 
course. John is told to let any one in who asks for her when she 
is at home, unless Mr. Kuhl is there, or Mr. Cyphers, or Mr. 
Von Phule — these gentlemen being acquaintances whom she 
likes to see without being intruded upon. There are usually, 
from two to five, at a time, whom she prefers, and to one she is 
" engaged" — that is to say, walks with him in Broadway, takes 
his arm in the cross streets, or in the evening, wears his ring, 
given in exchange for a lock of her hair, and tells him all her 
secrets. Just now she is engaged to Mr. Kuhl, and he is only 



280 TOPICS OF CONVERSATION. 



the fourth she has been engaged to, in the year and * iidlf fAaoe 
she left school. 

The conversation between Miss Nyscriem and her favorite 
beaux is nine-tenths occupied with the pulling to pieces of rival 
belles and beaux, and the remaining tenth is equally divided be- 
tween his Club, her prospective new bonnet, reasons for admiring 
each other, and " who is engaged." He finds, that the more per- 
sonal news he can bring the pleasantsr is his call, and she finds, that, 
between her dress-maker and a weekly visit to the Miss Sniflins, 
she can pick up gossip ejiough about the " goings-on," to astonish 
up the conversation whenever it seems likely to flag. New 
Operas, new books, new Galleries and Exhibitions, are dismissed 
with one phrase if mentioned at all, and the only practical sub- 
ject dwelt upon, the knowledge of which can possibly furnish 
guide or example for their own future destiny, is how much some 
couple, lately married, are worth, and how they can possibly 
afford to pay the rent of the house they have gone into. 

A year hence, Miss Melta Nyscriem will be nineteen. She 
will begin to find, at that time, that the number of her flirtations 
is getting to be rather an uncomfortable remembrance. Partly 
from not having been guarded against the evil of this kind of ac- 
cumulation, and partly from girlish vanity, she will have fully 
paraded all her conquests, and will be well known to all her 
female acquaintance as having been " engaged" to a certain num- 
ber of gentlemen who have since flirted very happily elsewhere. 
She will have acquired, also, a certain uneasy mistrust of male 
and female constancy, which is expressed in the insincere smUc 
and unconfiding manners that infallibly mark a flirt. In balls and 
morning calls she will find her interest lessening, and, if she could 
but feel sure of talking well enough, she would like to make a 



UNFORESEEN RESULTS. 281 



ehange in the character of her gentlemen acquaintances , but that 
ivould be hard to do, even if she were willing, for she is classified 
by sensible men as belonging to another set. Her mother has no 
gentlemen friends upon whom she might safely practise a new 
style of conversation at home, and would only be vexed, and teU 
her it was " her own doing," if she were to confide her troubles 
to her. Just arrived, in fact, at an age when she could first form 
a womanly judgment, and choose her companions with a taste 
that would hold good, she will find that her choice was long ago 
made, and that the position and character which should now be 
before her, are already fixed and stamped, and are no more mat- 
ters of choice. 

And what chance has Miss Melta Nyscriem to marry, either 
agreeably to herself or satisfactorily to her parents ? A refined 
young man shrinks instinctively from the thought of a bride who 
could never enter society without recalling, to the mind of every 
one, the number of persons in the room to whom she had been 
previously " engaged." Her own doubt, whether she could be 
agreeable to a superior man, would prevent her receiving him 
graciously or appearing to the advantage of which she might be 
ambitious. Kesources to retire upon, in the hope of out-living 
this prematurely chosen position, she has none. 

But would not a mother, who had kept her own place in society 
— who had friends of her own, youthful, but better chosen — who, 
as her daughter's intimate companion, would have imperceptibly 
trained her to converse with persons of any age, like a girl of 
sense, while she prevented her from cultivating and parading the 
siUy and useless intimacies which are so enviously remembered 
by rivals — would not such a mother have marked out for her, 
probably, a much more desirable destiny } With the earnest 



282 PREVENTION BY MOTHERS. 



wish to allow to a young girl every possible freedom of choice, 
should she not be guarded against destroying her own value be- 
fore she is ready to give herself away ? And may not a mother's 
experience and watchful friendship, train and keep guard over a 
daughter, at that incautious age of life, without undue interfer- 
ence — without, indeed, any hindrance of such natural selection 
for intimacy as would afterwards be pleasantly remembered ? 



SOCIETY AND MANNERS 



IN NEW YORK. 



Mobility of Fashionable Usage in New York — ^Depreciation of the Social 
Value of Wealth — Exacted Respectability of Acquisition — Necessity of 
Ornamental Acquaintance — Rising Fashion of Stylish-looking People. 

We hardly think Americans are aware of the kaleidoscope 
facility with which usages of society are adopted in this country — 
the suddenness with which changes come about — the ease with 
which prejudices are destroyed — the alacrity with which public 
opinion takes any plausible inoculation of improvement or novelty. 
Phenomenon as this is, in the history of Civilization, however, the 
explanation of it is very simple. Society, in all European coun- 
tries, is the simple, indigenous growth of many centuries — a tree 
carefully nursed and guarded, the products and fruits of which 
were sheltered from foreign admixture, and affected only through 
root and soil. Society in America, on the contrary, is a trans- 
planted stock, with no proper fruit of its own, though of no prodi- 
gal fertility ; forbidden, by the nature of our institutions, from 
being formally fenced in or privileged, but lending its juices 
spontaneously to any graft that may be inserted. Comers from 
all nations may sit in the shadow of it with equal welcome. A 



284 MOBILE USAGES. 



usage of Europe that has been ages in maturing, is ingrafted upon 
it and bears product in a year, or, having been tasted to repletion, 
it is dropped as readily and superseded by another. We have no 
national opinions on the disputed points of society — no prejudices 
—no habits. 

It will be understood, at once, that this stage " of easy wax" is 
natural to a new country, peopled by large simultaneous immigra- 
tions from every nation of Europe, and that, with time and know- 
ledge, our impressibility will harden, and we shall have, like older 
countries, fixed standards, and manners no more easily affected by 
innovation. It is meantime^ however, that opportunity best offers, 
for suggestion of good principles and remedy of evils ; and, we 
seriously believe we could do our country no better service, in 
this journal, than by agitating constantly the questions of relative 
social value, and settling, by discussion, as perseveringly and s'ft- 
ingly as possible, the bearings of polite usages and the good and 
evil of what a contemporary disapprovingly calls "distinction 
of classes." 

Let us call attention, for the moment, to a change in New York 
society which is now in transition, and suggest a result which we 
are hardly sanguine enough to anticipate, though it is very de- 
sirable. 

No one will deny, we presume, that mere wealth has lost much 
of its value, within the last five years, as a passport to society. 
There are, at this moment, rich people, by scores, waiting, unad- 
mitted, at the door of Fashion — those, too, whose houses, carriages 
and " good"-ness in Wall street, would, at one time, have been 
an " open-sesame" undisputed. Wealth, now, above an easy 
competency, only suggests the additional question of " how it was 
made ;" and, without a satisfactory answer to that, the blackball 



STYLE IN LOOKS. 285 



'•$pon a new-comer's advances would be unanimous. The inquiry, 
nowever, can only settle the point that the wealth is no objection ; 
• nd it is in this transition of wealth from a very positive to a 
/r :rely negative consideration, that we find the progress to which 

a wished to call the attention of the reader. 

The necessity of having a/n ornamental acquaintance, is a feel- 
irg which ias, of late, strengthened very perceptibly in the higher 
circles of New York, and this opposes, perhaps, to a claimant of 
fashion, the most formidable barrier. How Mrs. Somebody, who 
has left her card, will grace a matinee or figure at a ball, is the 
chief speculation which decides whether the visit shall be returned 
at all, or returned promptly or laggardly — with a mere card or 
with an " At Home" naming a weekly day of reception. It is 
not beauty that is exacted — though that is a very privileged pass- 
port — but style. To look well-bred has a value in this metropo- 
lis, at present, which gives more social rank than in any other 
capital in the world. And it is not surprising, for, where there 
are no titles, the grounds of fashionable estimation vary capri- 
ciously — with a few dazzling examples, or with rarity or over-use 
— and " old families" having mostly died out or become impover- 
ished, and wealth losing its value by frequency and vulgar accom- 
paniments, the " premium" has fallen very naturally upon the ex- 
ternal stamp of Nature. It is a well understood and definite 
emulation, with those who receive, to have the most distinguished- 
looking group at a matiiiee, or the most stylish of people and 
dresses at an evening party. 

Advanced, however, as this stage of fashionable estimation is, 
beyond a merely monied aristocracy, it is still very far less 
rational, less refined and less nobly republican than the standards 
that prevail in some of the choicer societies of Europe, In our 



286 TWO-FOLD EXCLUSIVENESS. 



next number we will endeavor to sketch one or two circles abroad, 
the elevated tone and feeling of which are the slow result of cen- 
turies of progress, but which we trust may be anticipatorily at- 
tained by the overleaping earnestness of our country, and by that 
unconceited willingness to learn which puts Americans over time as 
electricity puts news over distance. 

The circles in London, the access to which is generally under- 
stood to be most an honor and privilege, are not those whose en- 
tertainments and guests are duly chronicled in the Morning Post. 
The Duke of Devonshire's, the Marquis of Lansdowne's, the 
Duchess of Sutherland's, and two or three other houses of the 
nobility, form the sphere which is most unexceptionable for rank, 
style, and fashionable distinction. Into this, entrance may be 
obtained by advantages impersonal and accidental, and the posi- 
tion thus won may be retained by the same tenure, without any 
contribution to the brilliancy or agreeableness of the evening's 
entertainment. 

There is another sphere in London, formed of perhaps five or 
six houses, to which many have free access who would never be 
invited to the entertainments of the nobility; and to this sphere, 
on the other hand, many who visit freely in noble circles would 
with difl&culty obtain admittance. Among these are the houses 
of Hallam the historian, Babbage the mathematician, and one or 
two other gayer receptions than these. 

To this level of London society, a dandy lord, with no conver- 
sation but that of second-hand rote, would never attain ; nor a 
titled lady who was merely a dashiag woman of fashion ; nor any 
representative of money and nothing else. Strangers and foreign 
diplomatists aside, you are sure that every other guest is a person 
of mark — eminent for wit or powers of conversation, interest of 



INTELLECTUAI> STANDARDS. 287 



connection or distinction of personal character, beauty or grace, 
genius, energy or adventure. The threshold of this circle is care- 
fully guarded against folly and pretension, but, above all, against 
commonplaceness. Aristocratic it is — but the aristocracy is of 
God's endowing, not of Mammon's or the Queen's. 

There is a great difference in the manner in which these differ- 
ent kinds of society are frequented. At a ball at Lansdowne 
House or Devonshire House, the guests arrive at near midnight, 
in full dress, comply with all that ceremony or etiquette can re- 
quire, and, if they wait for the sumptuous supper at two or three, 
usually go home by daylight. To these magnificent routs, men 
of rank who have a career to look after, such as Lord John Rus- 
sell, Lord Brougham, Sir Robert Peel, or ambitious men who 
guide -adventurous intellects by collision and constant comparison 
of thoughts with other minds, look in for half an hour, or are 
perhaps only seen at two or three in the course of the season. 
The emulation at such places is that of splendor and display, 
mainly, and acquaintance with the current gossip of Court and 
fashion is more available than any other coin of intercourse. 

To the choicer intellectual receptions which we have described, 
guests go earlier, at nine or ten, and they commonly separate be- 
fore twelve. Tea is usually offered in the cloak-room as you 
enter, or found in a side-room, presided over by the housekeeper, 
and, except the ordinary eatables of a tea-table, no supper is 
given. The least possible ceremony is observed. The eminent 
statesmen come up from the session of Parliament in the dress 
they have worn all day, and, at any one of these parties, there 
are more noblemen, of the class we hear of at a distance, than at 
the most ■ fashionable rout. Artists and authors are there, in 
what costume they pleaso to come. Those among ladies of high 



288 AFTER-GROWTH OF SOCIETY. 



rank who frequent this class of society, (of whom there are many 
who shine in it and prefer it to all others,) appear in full dress, if 
they are going afterwards elsewhere, or in a home evening dress 
if not, and, of either sex, no particular toilet is exacted by cere- 
mony or usage. This freedom would be looked for, naturally, in 
an intellectual sphere of society ; but there is one feature of these 
few privileged receptions in London which takes the stranger by 
surprise — the extraordinary proportion of beautiful women whom 
he meets there. Whether it is that men of intellect attract 
beauty by giving it its best worship, or that the most valued gifts 
of Nature (and beauty among them) are the self-asserting claims 
to this kind of society, we leave open to speculation Among 
the constant attractions at these reunions of statesmen, philoso- 
phers, historians and poets, are those three Sheridan sisters, the 
handsomest women of their time, Lady Seymour, Hon. Mrs. Nor- 
ton and Lady Dufferin — a trio whose mental gifts are as rare as 
their loveliness. Lady Byron and the poet's daughter Ada (now 
Lady Lovelace) are other habitual frequenters — very regularly 
met, at least, in Mr. Babbage's modest apartments. 

Now, it is this after-growth of society which we spoke of, as the 
stage of refinement which we wished to see anticipated in New 
York. It was separated and formed, abroad, when gayer and 
more costly society had been found empty and unsatisfying. The 
most ultimate civilization was requisite to establish, in England, 
standards higher than rank or wealth ; but, with that same facility 
and alacrity with which we have skipped half-centuries at a time, 
in other matters, we may fore-reach to this. The corresponding 
material is about us, like grain ungathered into sheaves, in great 
abundance. Men of all kinds of talent are now in New York 
without one single centre around which they can be met. States- 



PASSABLE SOCIETY. 289 



men, distinguished officers, inventors, artists, influential minds 
among merchants, brilliant lawyers, professional foreigners of dis- 
tinction, talented clergymen and physicians, gentlemanly and 
able journalists, brilliantly endowed women, and beauties — there 
are enough of all to form one of the most delightful and attrac- 
tive societies in the world. Will not some one set the example, 
and collect, in weekly receptions without cost, at early hours and 
with no ceremony of dress or etiquette, a society where the gifts 
of God regulate the admission, and where utter mediocrity and 
meaningless display will be self- exiled by lack of atmosphere in 
which to shine ? 

13 



MANNERS AT WATERING-PLACES. 

Mode of making Acquaintances — Present ill-regulated access to Ladies' 
Society — Inattention to Mothers and Guardians — Difficulties of well-'bred 
Modesty in a Stranger — Proposal of new Laws of Etiqcette — Suggestion 
as to facilitating desirable Acquaintance, and removal of the Embarrass- 
ments and Awkwardnegges of these peculiarly American Phases of 
Society, etc., etc. 

In the mode of life at American watering-places exists a suffi- 
cient reason, even if there were not many others, why our coun- 
try should have a code of etiquette of its own. For the regu- 
lation of this great summer-lottery of contact and acquaintance, 
indeed, some special rules of politeness have been long needed, 
and another season should not go over without the agitation of a 
few points of which we will endeavor to present the handles. 
The discussion of them will, at least, furnish topics of conversa- 
tion, and almost any crude matter of opinion, if it be well dis- 
cussed, will grow clear with an after-word of common sense — as, 
in the old fashioned making of coffee, it needed but to be well 
boiled, and a scrap of dry fish skin vTOuld send all the sediment to 
the bottom. 

The subject, as Bulwer says, " opens up" as we look at it, and 
so many points present themselves, us worthy of comment, that 



WATERING PLACES. 291 



we are not sure we see the end in the limited perspective of an 
" article." Without promising thoroughly to approfond the 
evils of watering-places and their remedy, therefore let us say a 
word or two of the most obvious, viz : — 

THE MANNER OF MAKING ACQUAINTANCES. 

It is understood, of course, that (invalids excepted) those, who 
go to Saratoga and Newport, in the gay season, go to see new 
people, and with the expectation to make some new acquaint- 
ances. Absolute exclusives, determined to know nobody whom 
they did not know in the city, or refusing the ordinary and 
courteous reciprocities binding upon those who meet under the 
same roof, and share in the same gayeties, should have summer 
resorts of their own, and are out of place among strangers. Such 
exclusiveness is, moreover, an offence against the general happi- 
ness, which no rule of politeness would uphold, and especially an 
offence against the more liberal courtesy which should prevail in 
a republic. 

But the most genial and accessible people require, at such public 
places, barriers to protect them against too promiscuous an ae- 
quaintaaee ; while, at the same time, the stranger best worth 
knowing, requires some established method of access by which he 
can make, without embarrassment or compromise of dignity, the 
necessary approaches. Now, is it not singular, that there should 
be an annual gathering together of the most respectable people 
of this civilized country, in resorts where the usual slow forms of 
iatroduciion are impossible, and yet, that for these two essential 
wants, there is no definite provision in our usages of politeness.'' 

Of the dozen young gentlemen whose acquaintance a young 
lady will perhaps have made in a " season" at Saratoga, how 



292 DIFFICULTY OF STRANGERS. 



were the introductions brought about ? The chances are, that 
not one of them was presented by Ler father or mother, or by 
any elderly friend of her family. Girls of her own age, whose 
acquaintance she has made by feminine free masonry, have pre- 
sented some, and her city beaux have presented others, and one 
or two have asked her to dance on the strength of propinquity in 
a group. They are all very likely to have become pretty well 
acquainted with her, and to have left the Springs, without being 
presented to her father and mother at all. 

A game at billiards 'or a chance fraternization over juleps in 
the bar-room, is, in fact, the easiest and most frequent threshold 
of introduction to ladies at a watering-place. The dandies " in 
society," who chance to be there, hold the keys of acquaintance- 
ship with the belles, and of course the most knowing adepts in the 
ways of young men obtain the readiest introductions. But sup- 
pose a youth who has habits of self-culture of his own — who 
neither drinks at the bar, nor lounges in the billiard-room, and is 
both unwilling to owe the acquaintance of a lady to such a me- 
dium, or too proud to seek it and run the risk of a supercilious 
refusal — and how is this kind of stranger, who is perhaps the 
most truly valuable acquaintance a young lady could possibly 
make, to procure a presentation .'' Her mother sits apart, talk- 
ing to ladies of her own age, and to address her without an intro- 
duction would surprise her, and might end only in awkwardness. 
Her father is in New York attending to his business. Her 
brother is in his first stage of cravat, and as skittish of the pro- 
prieties of life as a colt is of harness. With no knowledge of 
whom he should meet, the stranger had, of course, brought no 
letters, and as for credentials, he could scarcely have them in his 
pocket, or scarcely nail them up, to be read, on the parlor door. 



MATERNAL SHARE. 293 



Any advances to the older gentlemen, who were seen to be gen- 
erally acquainted, and with a view to request introductions, mighl 
be looked upon as forwardness, and could not be made by a sensi- 
tive and high-minded man, without a certain sense of humiliation. 

We go back to a principle that does not apply to society at a 
watering-place alone, when we say that a young lady should re- 
ceive no new acquaintance, except through her parents, or 
through some one properly exercising parental responsibility. It 
is the fault, in the manners of our country, which, more than any 
other ^ needs correction^ that an acquaintance with a young lady 
may be begun, and pursued, with little or no inquiry or care as to 
the wishes of a mother, no cultivation of the mother's friendship, 
and no attentions to her, whatever, when met, with or without her 
daughter, in society. The exceptions to this general fact show 
how mistaken it is, in policy as well as in propriety ; for, no 
belles appear to such advantage, in the eyes of men, as those 
whom a mother's watchful care show to be precious, and who, at 
the same time, have the foil of a mother's graver manners to set 
off the more playful graces of youthfulness. It is partly from 
having thus no share in society, and from the weariness of being 
only neglected lookers-on, that women in this country give up, so 
early in life, all efforts to please or shine, and that there is, in 
consequence, that lack of sympathy and friendship between 
mothers and daughters which is so marked a feature of our man- 
ners. We know scarce anything which would so change, brighten 
and elevate American society, as the attention which, in England, 
is shown to the middle-aged, and the deference which is paid to 
the old. But we have discussed this bearing of our subject 
elsewhere. 

To this two-fold evil, then, of manners at watering-places — in- 



294 COMMITTEE OF INTRODUCTION. 



troductions whicli are too easy to the forwaid and too difficult to 
the modest — some remedy should be found. We are likely to 
continue a more gregarious people than the Europeans — likely to 
go on, frequenting watering-places in respectable and promiscuous 
thousands, meeting every year a crowd of whom nine-tenths are 
strangers and candidates for new acquaintance — and it is surely 
reasonable, that, for such national peculiarities of association, wo 
should have some peculiarities of polite usage, such as, of course, 
we cannot copy or learn from the never changing and hedged-in 
aristocracies of Europe.* 

To define and settle a new law of politeness, is the work of 
time and much discussion. G-raver things may be done with half 
the trouble. But, by way, merely, of throwing out a conjecture, 
the material of which may be pulled to pieces and rebuilt, let us 
sketch an arrangement for introductions at watering-places, that 
seems to us, for the moment, very practicable and plausible 

At Saratoga, for instance, at the commencement of the season, 
the landlord of the " Union" might select sis of his most respecta- 
ble visitors, and request them to form into a Committee of Man- 
agement, which should thence-forward supply its own vacancies, 
and enlarge its number at will. Their duty should be to preside 
generally over the gayeties and social arrangements of the house. 
It would be convenient if they would allow themselves to be de- 
signated by a ribbon in the button-hole, but, at any rate, their 
names should be written up in the office of the hotel, and it should 
he etiquette for any gentleman or lady to speak to them without an 
introdioction. Every new comer, in that case, would start, at 
once, with six accessible acquaintances, with which provision, of 
persons inclined to be courteous, any stranger who had tolerable 
tact and good manners, would find no difficulty in getting on. In 



CGDE OF ETIQUETTE. 295 



^ase of an objectionable applicant, the managers could give no 
offence by extending to bim only tbeir own civility. Tbey would 
exercise their discretion as to introductions, and as, of course, 
they would present no stranger to a lady without first asking per- 
mission of herself or her proper guardian, they could incur no 
special responsibility by so doing. 

The managers might be addressed simply as " Mr. Manager," 
and applied to, for introductions of one gentleman to another, or 
for any service of ordinary courtesy. Ladies might request them 
to find partners for their daughters or their friends. 

They should, themselves, be at liberty to speak to any gentle- 
man or lady, unintroduced. It should be their duty to keep a 
general supervision over the happiness of visitors, to bring for- 
ward the diffident, relieve embarrassment or annoyance, promote 
amusement, and preserve harmony. 

Perhaps one or two influential ladies might be invited to share 
in the eouncU duties of the committee of management. 

The managers might select a sub-committee of young men to 
manage the Balls and Hops Especially they should be em- 
powered to " put into Coventry" any offensive visitor, refuse such 
an one the tickets to balls, and sustain the landlord in expelling 
him from the house if necessary. In eases of personal dispute, 
they should be sovereign umpires, and a man should forfeit his 
position as a gentleman if he did not abide by their decision. 

Young ladies would exercise their discretion, of course, as to 
accepting introductions through any channel ; but it should be 
voted better taste to receive new acquaintances only through 
parents or managers. 

It might be well, perhaps, to consider a manager's introduction, 
or a watering-place acquaintance, as in a manner probationary — 



296 WATERING-PLACE INTRODUCTIONS. 



to be dropped afterwards, if advisable, without convention&i 
oflFence. 

It should be good taste for any gentleman to ask an introduc- 
tion to another, at a watering-place, and proper to present all 
persons to each other who happen to mingle in groups. 

Now we can conceive our multitudinous American resorts for 
the summer, delightfully harmonized, liberalized and enlivened by 
the adoption of a code of which this would be an outline. What 
say, dear reader ? 



OPERA MANNERS, 

AND DEMEANOR OF GENTLEMEN IN AMERICA. 

" All this beheard a little foot-page, 
By his ladye's coach as he ran ; 
Quoth he, ' though I am my ladye's page. 
Yet I'm my lord Bernard's man.' " 

Ballad of Little Mus<se ivb. 

Politeness to women is an impulse of nature, and Americans 
are, to women, the politest nation on earth. Politeness of gen~ 
thmen to each other is the result of refinement and good breeding, 
and American gentlemen, toward their own sex, are the least 
polite people in the world. 

As close as possible upon the heels of so disagreeable a truth, 
let us mention an influence or two which has helped to increase 
or confirm the had manners of American men. 

In the national principle of get on — with or without means — 
hut any how^ GET ON ! the art of persuasion has been pressed 
into the service of business. It was long ago found out, in Wall 
street, that politeness would help get a note discounted, some- 
times procure a credit, frequently stave off a dun. Being used 
more by those who had such occasion for it, than by those who 
13* 



298 CAUSES OF RUDENESS. 



effected their ends with good endorsements and more substantial 
backing, politeness has gradually grown to be a sign of a man in 
want of money. A gentlemanly bow and cordial smile given to a 
man in Wall street, will induce him to step round the corner and 
inquire of some friend as to your credit — taking your bow and 
smile to be the forerunner of a demand for a loan. 

Politeness, again, has been discredited in this country by the 
class of foreigners who have served as examples of it. All 
Frenchmen are admirably polite, but, few of the higher class 
coming to this country, French politeness has passed into a usual 
sign of a barber, a cook, or a dancing master. 

Much American rudeness, too, grows out of the republican fact 
that, personal consequence being entirely a matter of opinion— 
(regulated by no Court precedence, entailed fortune or heraldic 
record) — every man fights his own castle of dignity, and looks de- 
fiance, of course, into every unfamiliar face that approaches. 
Politeness without previous parley or some disarming of reserve, 
is tacitly understood to be the deference of respectful admii-ation 
or implied inferiority. 

One other, though perhaps a less distinct influence acting upon 
American manners, is the peculiar uncertainty of men's fortunes 
and positions in this country, and the natural suspiciousness and 
caution which are the inevitable consequence. In such a boiling 
pot of competition, with bubbles continually rising and bursting, 
the natural instinct of self-preservation makes men careful in 
whose rising they seem to take an interest. Too much openness 
of manner and too free a use of the kind expressions of politeness, 
would result in a man's being too often singled out for desperate 
applications by friends in need. A character for sympathy and 



FOREIGNER'S JUDGMENT. 299 



generosity is well known, in American valuation, to be one of the 
most expensive of luxuries. 

It is true that these causes of our bad manners are temporary, 
and wUl cease to act as the country refines and grows older ; but 
is it not a question worth asking, meantime, whether the ultimate 
standard, for the manners of American gentlemen, is not, thus, 
permanently afiected ? We simply drop this pearl of precaution 
into the vinegar of our fault-finding. 

To catalogue all the American variations from foreign good- 
breeding, would be to write a work on manners in general — (a 
subject upon which we are very far from setting up our opinions 
as authority, and for which a book, and not a newspaper article, 
would ofier the proper space) — these variations extending through- 
out all manners, as the general discouragement of courtesy lessens 
its degree in every kind of manifestation. We wish, just here, to 
comment on a point or two only. 

At the Opera, if anywhere in a capital like this, one looks to 
find gentlemen, and such good manners as are conventional all 
over the world. It is the one public amusement which has been 
selected as the centre for a Dress Exchange — a substitute for a 
general Drawing-room — a refined attraction which the ill-man- 
nered would not be likely to frequent, and around which the 
higher classes might gather, for the easier interchano-e of cour- 
tesies, and for that closer view which aids the candidacy of ae- 
£[uaintance. To the main object of an Opera, music is, in a 
certain sense, secondary; and should be considered as but a 
lesser part of the value received for the price of an Opera ticket. 

A foreigner standing against the stair-railing of the Astor Place 
Opera lobby, between the acts, and looking cooUy around upon 
the male crowd, would imagine that the men were either most 



300 OPERA DISCOURTESIES. 



intimately acquainted, or obstinately determined not to be ac- 
quainted at all — there is such an utter absence of any form of 
politeness in meeting, greeting, parting or passing by. A man 
in white gloves goes elbowing through the crowd, shoving and in- 
commoding twenty people, without care or hesitation ; another 
knocks your hat out of your hand, and never dreams of picking it 
up or begging pardon — a third intrudes upon two who are con- 
versing, and perhaps takes the arm of one and draws him away, 
without the slightest excuse or acknowledgment to the other left 
behind — a fourth is reminded by a polite foreigner that he is 
losing his handkerchief, or that another gentleman is beckoning 
to him, and expresses no thanks in return. There are no polite 
phrases to be overheard ; no hats seen to be lifted ; no smiles of 
courtesy or indications of respectfulness at the greetings of older 
men ; and no sign of the easy and unconscious hilarity which 
marks a man not on the look-out for a slight — none of the features, 
in short, which make up the physiognomy of a well-bred crowd in 
an Opera-lobby of Europe. 

We confine our remarks entirely, as will have been noticed, to 
such politenesses as are based on kindness and good feeling. We 
do not think any one country's customs are a law for another, in 
the decision of such questions as whether a gentleman may wear 
colored gloves at the Opera, or visit a lady's box in a frock-coat. 
Each, trifles regulate themselves. We should be glad to see a 
distinctly American school of good manners, in which all useless 
etiquettes were thrown aside, but every politeness adopted or in- 
vented which could promote sensible and easy exchanges of good 
will and sociability. We have neither time nor space to say more 
of this, but will close with the mentior of one very needful and 



OCTOBER-DOM. 2(H 



proper Operatic etiquette, which is either unknown or wholly dis- 
regarded by most of the frequenters of Astor Place. 

An Opera-box is not a place for long conversations, or for mo- 
nopoly of a lady's society. Even the gentleman who haa the 
best claim to esclusive occupancy (from acknowledged prece- 
dence in favor) , commits an indelicacy in proclaiming his privilege 
by using it in public. The Opera is a place for greetings, remind- 
iugs, exchanges oi the compliments of acquaintanceship, explain- 
ings of preventions or absences, making of slight engagements — 
for the regulating and putting to right of the slighter wheels in 
the complicated machinery of society. It is a labor-saving inven- 
tion of fashionable life — for, the twenty social purposes achieved 
in one evening at the Opera, and by which acquaintance is kept 
up or furthered, would require almost as many separate calls at 
the residences of the ladies. It is upon these grounds, doubtless, 
that was first based the common European etiquette of which we 
speak, viz :— that, after occupying a seat in a lady's Opera-box 
for a few minutes, the occupant gives il up at the approach of 
another of ike lad'fs acquaintances, unless his rising from the seat 
is prevented by her express wish to the contrary. Husbands and 
brothers ai'e included in this place-giving compulsion, for the best 
of wives require some variety to domestic bliss, and ladies come 
to the Opera to pay dues which they owe to society and ac- 
quaintance. 

The chance Opera, at the Astor Place, last week, brought to- 
gether a certain world — call it Octoeer-dom — for which we have 
yearly wondered that the Operatic Manager has not thought it 
worth his while to cater. Few of our own fashionables were pre- 
sent, and yet a more thoroughly fashionable audience was never 
assembled in that house. There were Virginians, Louisianians, 



302 SOUTHERNERS IN NEW YORK. 



Carolinians, Kentuckians and Washingtonians — the picked Society 
of these Southern and Western latitudes — delighted that there 
was a foretaste of the Opera which was to commence after their 
departure for home, and evidently rejoicing in a dress place of 
public entertainment. We are satisfied, that, if there were an 
Opera-house of twice the size, the best Operatic month of tL^ 
whole year would be the month of October — ministering, as it 
would, to this high-bred and pleasure-loving October-dom of 
strangers. 

We were very much struck, as we presumed others were, who 
were present, at the air of superiority given to the masculine por- 
tion of the audience, by the presence of the large number of 
Southern gentlemen. The leisure to grow to full stature, and a 
mind not overworked with cares and business, certainly havo 
much to do with the style and bearing of a race, and the expres- 
sion of gentlemanly superiority, ease and joioissancc, which pre- 
vailed throughout the Opera-house on Wednesday evening, was 
a novelty there, and one of which we might well desire the cul- 
ture and perpetuation. 

As our country's great centre of transit, we should think ths 
society of New York, as well as its special public amusement of 
fashion, might accommodate itself to the October presence of 
Southerners, with advantage. A brief gay season of early parties, 
on the ofi" nights of the Opera, might take place in this month, 
and the usual painting, and exchanging of carpets and curtains, 
which is the present ostensible reason for closed houses, might be 
deferred till a November vacation. What tlio French call Peta 
de St. Martin, and we " tlie Indian Summer," might be, socially, 
the most delightful month in the year. It would be the etiquette, 
as it used to be in Boston about t!ie time of Harvard Commence- 



TEDESCO. 303 



ment, to call upon all presentable strangers ; and this custom 
would promote an intimacy and good feeling between Northern 
and Southern society, which would be no trifling link in binding 
the country together. 

The Opera was very fairly done. Tedesco, (whose pinguidity 
waxes,) was not in her best vein — (and she is the laost journaliere 
prima donna we ever saw) — but she furnished one evening's suflS.- 
cient allowance of pleasure, and we should be glad to compromise 
for as much, twice a week. Tafianelli, the most fighting-cock- 
esque of stage-walkers, who sings, as we said last winter, like a 
man with a horse under him — a sort of baritone centaur, magnifi- 
cently masculine — gave us, as before, unlimited satisfaction. 
That he is not engaged by the Astor Place management, seems 
to us one of those fatuitous blunders which there must be some- 
thing, undreamed of, behind the curtain, to explain. 



WEDDING ETIQUETTES. 

Proprieties of Cards— Mistakes of Courtship — Purgatory Antecedent to 
Wedlock — Rights of Lovers — Suggestion of new Etiquette at Weddings — 
Time to have American Etiquettes and Customs, etc. 

We receive letters from time to time, requesting information 
through. The Home Journal, upon points of ceremony and fash- 
ionable usages. To all such inquirers we would say, that they 
have, nearer home, an infallible guide in these matters — good 
sense and kind consideration for othefs being the basis of every 
usage of polite life that is worth regarding, and the best way to 
settle any disputed etiquette, being simply to dissect its purpose, 
see whether it fulfils it, or whether it was not originally made for 
a different society from that in which it is proposed to copy it. 
All European usages of politeness are not suited to American 
opinions, habits, temper and institutions ; and, indeed, we have 
long thought that our country was old enough to adopt manners 
awl etiquettes of its own — based, like all politeness, upon benevo- 
lence and common sense, but still differing, with our wants and 
character as a people. 

Simple as the reasons for all polite usages are, or should be, 
however, there is, now and then, a point upon which there is a 



WEDDING CARDS. 305 



difference of opinion ; and, perhaps, it may help to Americanize 
a code of politeness, (an object we think it well worth our while to 
further,) if we answer, as far as we are able, inquiries upon such 
points as fairly admit of question. 

We have before us, (post-marked mostly in the city,) a mod- 
erate pyramid of letters, asking decisions upon points of wedding 
etiquette. Most of these are of too simple solution for the neces- 
sary gravity of print ; but, as almost any of our readers may be 
concerned, one way or another, in turning the key of wedlock, 
we select one of the difficulties which is not touched upon in the 
" Manual of Etiquette," and proceed to pick open its intricacies- 
Trifle of etiquette as, in itself, it is, (perhaps we may as well 
prefatorily say;) the query we speak of, makes part of a very seri- 
ous and important matter, and we are by no means sure that, 
with only a visiting card for a text, we shall not end in what 
would pass for a sermon. 

In one rather discursive letter, the closing passage thus sums 
up what the writer wishes to know : — 

" Mr. Brown, to state the case once more, is to marry Miss Smith. The 
invitations to the wedding are sent out, but whose card should be sent with 
it — Miss Smith's or Mr. Brown's ? And why should not the parents of Mr. 
Brown send also cards and invitations to their son's wedding ?" 

The "latter query need scarce be answered, for, as givers of the 
entertainment in their own house, it is of course proper that Mr. 
and Mrs. Smith should send out the invitations in their own 
name, and with no mention of Mr. and Mrs. Brown. 

Touching the first query, we have more to say. The fashion, 
in New York, is to enclose, with the invitation from the parents, 
the card of the affianced young lady — and this, we think, is an 
error. It is not necessary for the purpose of announcing that the 



306 MISTAKE OF USAGE. 

proposed entertainmerit is to be a wedding — for the card of invi- 
tation is of the peculiar style known as a bridal card, and tells in 
itself, that Mr. and Mrs. Smith are to be " At Home" on such a 
day, to marry a daughter. This much being known, the informa- 
tion next deman-ded is — to wJiom ? But this is not answered by 
enclosing Miss Smith's card, and the only meaning it can have, as 
an additional enclosure, must be to say that she, too, joins in the 
invitation. But is it not understood that an unmarried girl has 
no welcome to offer, to visitors, which is at all separable from 
that of her parents } and is it not a well-established usage that a 
bride, during all the preparations for her marriage, should be 
nominally passive and secluded — entering, for the time, into 
almost the novitiate of a nun, and taking no demonstrative part 
in any matter which could be heard or spoken of out of doors .'' 

To enclose the bridegroom's card, on. the contrary, would serve 
one or two specific purposes. It would explain to whom the in- 
viting parents propose to marry their daughter. It would show 
that it was with the bridegroom's good will that the invitation 
was sent to each particular person ; and that he wished to adopt 
his bride's friends as his own ; and that Mr. and Mrs. Smith, by 
sending his name in company with theirs, formally introduced and 
commended their new son-in-law to the acquaintance and friend- 
ship of their visiting circle. 

But we do not plummet this matter to the bottom, in discuss- 
ing its mere reasonableness as an etiquette. The New York 
fashion of sending the bride's card, when the bridegroom's would 
go more properly in its place, is an exponent of something deeper 
than a mistaken guess at propriety. It is in accordance with a 
general feelings constantly acted on, in this country, and to which 
we have long thought attention should be called — throwing, as it 



LOVER'S PURGATORY. 307 



does, mistrust, depreciation and humiliating difficulty across the 
approaches to marriage, and laying up resentments and mistaken 
valuations for after annoyance and disenchantment. 

Let us try to explain the operation of the feeling to which we 
refer — premising that we speak only of matches that are tolera- 
bly equal, or where the wife, in a year or two after marriage, will, 
most likely, be considered to have married well. 

The lover and the preferee — (we must make a word to answer 
our purpose, for there is none in the language which describes a 
young lady to whom a gentleman is paying his addresses, after the 
intimate fashion universal in America) — the lover and the pre- 
feree, we repeat, undergo a counter metamorphosis, in the esti- 
mation of her family and friends, the moment his intentions are 
made known He^ from a respectable and promising youth, as 
youths average, becomes at once a pretender, a culprit, and an 
object of disparagement and suspicion. She, from being a mortal, 
with the usual accomplishments and feminine liabilities, becomes 
at once a faultless angel, the advantages of whose alliance are be- 
yond dispute, and whose "attachment to such a man is most 
surprising." From a comparative level of pretensions, she is un- 
hesitatingly raised to the zenith, and he as unhesitatingly pre- 
cipitated to the nadir ; and it is in this relative false position that 
the courtship is carried on. His good qualities are coldly allowed, 
his youthful prospects made light of — ^his faults and disadvantages 
exaggerated and dwelt upon. During the whole period of the 
lover's " addresses," there is one prevailing influence brought to 
bear upon the preferee's mind — that she might have done better j 
and that the giving of her hand to this man is a condescension^ 
which he should start fair with understanding. 

That an unwillingness to submit to this undeserved purgatory, 



808 EVILS OF "EKGAGEMENTS." 



and a distaste for the family in which he is treated as a tolerated 
intruder, drives many a sensitive man to break an engagement 
which might else have ended happily, is easy enough to think 
probable. But to him •who persists, and marries in spite of these 
obstacles, they are hardly less an evil. He is little likely ever 
thoroughly to forgive those relatives and friends of his wife whose 
disparagement and coldness, at so critical a time, wounded his 
vanity and perilled his dearest hope ; and there is always, after- 
wards, of course, an unpleasant recollection, which stands ready, 
like tinder, for a quarrel, and shuts off that cordial groundwork 
of family intimacy which, in England, in most cases, makes the 
new relationship, acquired by marriage, one of the greatest bless- 
ings that it brings. The worst evil still follows — the inevitable 
descent of the young wife, soon after marriage, from her zenith 
of false valuation, and the rise, as inevitable, of the husband from 
his unfair position of disparagement. The lesson of what is due, 
from one wedded heart to the other, is to be learned all over again ; 
and it takes tempers, to say the least, unusually docile and for- 
bearing, not to jar in the setting right of such late-found errors 
of comparative estimation. 

The prevalence of so irrational a feeling would seem singular, 
if the causes were not so apparent and natural. It arises partly 
from the uncertainty of " engagements," in our present state of 
society, and a consequent desire, on the part of relatives, that, in 
case the lover gives up the pursuit, the preferee, firstly, shall not 
have become too much in love, and secondly, shall seem, herself j 
to have broken the tie, owing to the objectionable qualities which 
(as the relatives' previous abuse had made evident) came out 
upon more intimate acquaintance. These " engagements," too, 
numbering from three to five, and the young lady losing value as a 



DUE TO A LOVER. 309 



match, in proportion to the number whose names ha^e been con- 
nected with hers, the lover, is, in a manner, " the enemy" until 
it is quite certain that he is " the one." Then — good things as 
religion and " American homage to woman" are, there is a cant 
about both ; and, just as the pretention to over-holiness, by hy- 
pocrites and by the silly, makes true piety undervalued, so the 
true position of woman is falsified by the indiscriminate transfor- 
mation of all who are sought into angels — the purgatory (besides) 
which is put between, and through which angels can alone be 
reached, being likely to be remembered, (by the persevering sin- 
ner who after all wins only a mortal), as the " too much paid for 
the whistle." No, no ! the disappointments, after wedlock, 
should be but of one kind — like the poor man's in the Persian 
story, who, in the tumult of the mai-ket-place bought a silent 
bird for a wren, but, in the solitude of his chamber, it turned out 
a nightingale. 

To provoke agitation of an objectionable point which is still 
settled by general usage, is, of course, all that a newspaper writer 
could aspire to do ; but we may be allowed perhaps, without 
seeming to assume authority in such matters, to suggest the 
changes we should like to see — thus recapitulating, briefly, the 
burthen of our subject. 

From the moment that a young man assumes the attitude of 
allowed suitor to a lady, he should be encircled with the kind pro- 
tection and considerate respect which belongs to a relative. The 
necessary inquiry into his character and position should be made 
with the utmost delicacy, and by those alone who have the war- 
rant of parental authoiity. In their manners to him, the family 
of the lady should show that they consider him made sacred by 
the preference of their beloved one, and should anticipate, by 



310 DUE TO BRIDEGROOMS. 



courtesy, the confiding cordiality he is expected and trusted to 
deserve. His own value should be fully and generously allowed, 
and a deference to his wishes and opinions should be shown, such 
as will chime with the probable state of things in a year after his 
marriage. Whatever be the kind of man a daughter is likely to 
marry, he would be tenfold more bound to be a good husband and 
a kind relative, by such treatment, than by the suspicious cold- 
ness and cautious disparagement we have described. 

We should like, also, to see the American wedding etiquette 
contain some token of compliment to the bridegroom. The newly 
come, in religious orders, in the world's honors and in hospitality, 
have some ceremony of welcome. If it were only the formal en- 
closure of his card with that of his parents-in-law, in the invita- 
tions to the wedding, it would be at least, a recognition. But 
this might be done and something more. At present, he stands 
with his bride, after the ceremony, and the groomsmen bring up 
the visitors, who bow to both together, looking only at the bride, 
of course, and retire. But the bridegroom is a just admitted 
member of the family, and a guest under the roof; and would it 
not be like a respect and a welcome, if he should stand apart 
after the marriage, and let thes presentations, tc him^ be made 
separately, and hy the fat.her or male relatives of the bride ? 



SOCIETY NEWS. 

A SIGNIFICANT luove is making, in New York society, just 
now. Its demonstrations are such as would not take place in an 
older country. Like youthful blood, which throws out, in a 
" rash," or a " scarlatina," a disease which, in older blood, would 
strike to the heart, American society no sooner becomes conscious 
of an evil than it sets about the removal of it. 

Before mentioning the signs of the new movement, let us first 
define the uneasiness which it is struggling to correct. 

The phrase " it don't pay," is the metal of a great deal too 
much that is American. From the Republic's broadly-based 
temple of Refinement amid Freedom, this pitiless knife slices off 
dome and steeple. For what we have, that is ornamental, 
indeed, we are indebted to a devil whose tail we would fain 
conceal, viz. : the love of ostentation — but, without this, what is 
there, except business, that would be quoted "to pay.?" 

That the society of the ladies is a stock that is " down in the 
market" — that it " don't pay," and that those who can invest in 
any thing else are shy of it — is mortifyingly true ; but there is a 
partial apology for the dulness of the American enterprise on this 
Doint, which we hasten to explain. 



312 TWO EUROPEAN-ISMS. 

In all countries but this, there are two kinds of guano by which 
the masculine plants, in the garden of society, are mostly forced 
into flower. These two stimulants to the bright blossoms of 
European politeness and devotion-^two which are not yet 
imported or used in American cultivation — are intrigue and 
" gallantry." On the strong juices of vice or vanity, concealed 
" under the showy efflorescence of " men about town," these 
manures act very powerfully. Of the former, (intrigue,) we 
need not speak, as the flower which it produces is so diligently 
recognised and weeded* out from American society, that there is 
no fear of it except where it can grow wild ; but of the latter, 
(gallantry,) let us say a word, by way of botanical analysis. 

Married men, and all men who still believe in their powers of 
pleasing, go eagerly " into society," in Europe. It is not for the 
mere sake of being seen there, for social rank is not lost, (in old 
and slow countries), by being out of sight. It is not to hear 
music or to see dancing. It is not to exchange mere civilities 
•with acquaintance, to hear the scandal, and eat an untimely 
supper. If these were the only inducements, they would doubtless 
vote, with the Americans, that "it don't pay." But, (personal 
motives of ambition or interest aside) there is one general 
motive which brings those eagerly into society, whose " views are 
virtuous." You may call it vanity, if you please, but it is so 
refined upon, and so tinctured with the neighbourhood of things 
more sacred, that we are very much inclined to propose it for an 
exotic importation. 

A " middle-aged man," for instance, enters an evening party. 
The quarantine speech to the lady of the house well over, he 
addresses himself . to the appropriation of what pleasure he 
expected to find in the assemblage present. With a polite bow, 



FRIENDSHIPS OF SENTIMENT. 313 



here and there, as he winds his way through the crowd, he arrives 
presently at the side of a lady who gives him a cordial shake of 
the hand, and makes room for him, if possible, to sit down beside 
her. She is one of a certain number, circulating in the same 
society, with whom he is on terms of confidence and friendship. 
Pier health, since he saw her, is a matter of sincere and kind 
enquiry ; her looks and toilette for the evening, and her incidents 
of life, more or less important, for the last few days, are respect- 
fully and tenderly discussed. Comments on what is around, and 
news of the day, mix in with these beginnings of conversation. 
But there is a fund of reserved interest beyond these trifles. 
The lady is one whom he binds to him by delicate attentions 
perpetually remembered. Presents in the holidays, and civilities 
in public places, are the more formal manifestations ; and, by a 
constant watchfulness over her position and associations, he finds 
many opportunities of serving her, and of making her life seem 
guarded and ministered to. In return for this, she is his friend. 
She takes an interest in his ambition, his success in business, his 
annoyances, his likes and dislikes, his health and his designs for 
the future. She loves his wife and his children — counsels him as 
to critical questions of conduct — talks, or lets him talk, as either 
has more to say — requests services of him, or confides secrets to 
him — does her best, in short, to minister to his valuation of 
himself, as he ministers to hers. They chat for an hour, and he 
passes on — each to say kind things of the other to those whom 
they next meet, each to correct whatever is afloat to the other's 
prejudice, each to thank the other for that much of pleasure at 
the party, and to hope for another such meeting in society, soon 
again. The attentions, which such a friend pays to such a lady 

are called, in France, galanteries, and the impulse which prompts 
14 



314 DANCES DISCOUNTENANCED. 



them you may call vanity^ if you wiU ; but the selfish and soul- 
narrowing mope, at home, of a man who declares that these 
things "don't pay," is a less desirable alternative. We are 
inclined to think — even apart from the interest of men in the 
matter — that every woman in the world, who is not frightful 
within and without, would prefer the galanteries, and think 
society very much improved by them. 

Hitherto, in America, we need not say, the manifestations of 
such a friendship as we have described, would have been flagrant 
ground for scandal and suspicion. And, what with this female 
readiness to prejudge conduct, and the male readiness to find 
things that " pay better" — ^between these two causes, we say — 
society in New York has become almost exclusively a method of 
getting together women and boys — the men being no part or 
parcel of what is promiscuously designated as " the gay world" 
by those who preach at it from a distance. • 

As we said in the beginning, there are signs that this evil is 
felt, and there are movements making to remedy it. A feeling is 
gaining ground that men should be included in polite society. 
The morning receptions, particularly, to which not even boys go 
— unpivoted halves of scissors exclusively present — have been 
voted unsatisfying. It is one of the movements we speak of, that 
two or three of the leading ladies of fashion have resolved to 
receive, early in the evening, when the men, who are to be urged 
to come, are more likely to think " it will pay." 

Another significant movement, tending to the same end, is the 
recent hostile blow at the boy-ocracy, struck by the suppression 
of the " polka and schottish." It is voted not proper for ladies 
to dance these dances with any thing that is old enough to do any 



LADY MEMBERS OF CLUBS. 315 



harm ; and, as men are expected in society, sucli over-famiLarities 
are to be confined hereafter to the nursery. 

The third movement we noticed last week — the admission of 
ladies as members of the Athenaeum Club. This is a sort of 
meeting of the men half way — a willingness to get acquainted — 
a confession of the desirableness of thoughts and knowledge in 
common, and an " openness to conviction," as to exclusive rights 
respectively claimed and monopolized. We repeat our admiration 
of this arrangement. It will lead to a compromise, and a social 
union of both sexes in a developed state, in New York society, 
we fervently hope. 



THE PROPRIETY OF SKETCHES OF FASHIONABLE 
' SOCIETY. 

We have, for some time, wanted an opportunity to draw a line 
of distinction as to what properly incurs piMicity. 

There is some difference, worthy of mention, also, we conceive, 
between the just liability to this, in England or in America. 

One other point can be touched upon, (under the same text 
accidentally furnished us) — an ultra-arhtocratical peculiarity of 
this country, which threatens soon to become a " cancer beyond 
cautery," and to which, at least, it will do no harm to call 
attention. 

The price of more admiration from the world than falls 
ordinarily to one person's lot, has, by immemorial usage, included 
one inconvenience — a forfeiture of privacy as to conduct, and a 
subjection to public criticism as to manners, habits, and personal 
appearance. Authors, artists, orators, and men high in office, 
must stop on the very threshold of Fame, and take leave of 
privacy of heart and home. Fontenelle says of Newton, " He 
was more desirous of remaining unknown, than of having the 
jalm of life disturbed by those literary storms which genius and 
science artract about those who rise to ominence." And the 



EQUALIZED PRICE OF ADMIRATION. 317 



sentiment of former ages on the subject is thus expressed by a 
celebrated writer : — " In ancient Rome, the great men, who 
triumphed amid the applauses of those who celebrated their 
virtues, were, at the same iime, compelled to listen to those who 
reproached them with their vices. The custom is not less necessary 
to the republic of letters than it was formerly to the republic of 
Rome. Without this, it is probable that authors would be 
intoxicated with success, and would relax in their accustomed 
vigour ; and the multitude who took them for models, would, for 
want of judgment, imitate their defects.'' 

Without discussing the justice of this time-honoured payment 
for distinction, it seems to us that the pervading principle of a 
republic should equalize the price of public admiration to all 
zustuvicrs. Under Courts and Monarchies, it may be consistently 
allowed, to privileged classes, to force their display of superiority 
upon the public, and at the same time forbid public criticism of 
even the bad taste or bad morals that may accompany it. The 
self-asserting and prevailing leaders of fashion, more particularly, 
it seems to us, should be responsible to public criticism, in a 
republic. The private lives of authors, artists and politicians, 
have no i>ijlit,ence, in comparison with those of leaders of fashion. 
They should be more subject to critical publicity, in proportion 
as they give the tone to morals, stamp the manners, and introduce 
and regulate the usages of the country. The writer of the Life 
of the great Confucius (to whose memory 15^0 temples now stand 
erected in China) mentions this very responsibility as the key to 
his whole life of efibrt. " The course of Confucius seemed to 
say, ' If I can win princes and their courts to wisdom and virtue 
— through their influence descending upon the mass, I will gradually 
reform all the people.'' Nor was this reformatory scheme unworthy 



318 LIABILITY TO CRITICISM. 



of his mind. The Few haxc. ahvmjs created the character of 
society.'''' 

Of course, it is very difficult to have fashionable society 
criticised with tact, truth and taste. But there is just as little 
likelihood that the private life of an author will be criticised with 
tact, truth and taste — and yet he is forced to live with less social 
protection than other men, and take his chance. Our feeling is, 
that any society which claims superiority to the many, and which 
in reality sets examples for the many, should be open to the 
criticism of the many. And the same of individuals. There 
seems an instinctive and natural law of compensation, by which 
we have a right to be reconciled as far as possible to the superi- 
orities of this world, partly by knowing truly the drawbacks to 
their lot, and partly by making them more responsible for their 
use of what wo are deprived of. The private life of a very rich 
or very fashionable person is as much more legitimately a subject 
of public criticism, in proportion to the public deference or 
admiration he receives, as is the life of an author or a public 
man. 

Our readers will remember that we expressed great pleasure, 
not long since, in the promise of a series of articles by M, de 
Trobriand, in his French Review, on the gossip and gayeties of 
New York society. What we said then, was based upon the 
feeling we have expressed now, and upon the prospect that the 
work would be done, as it rightly should be — by a man who is 
himself part of the society he would sketch, who would treat it 
fairly, and describe it truly, and who, at the same time, is enough 
a citizen of the world to detect local absurdities, and has plenty 
of talent and satire at his command to hit justly, and reform while 
be should aniuso. In the transfer of his gay and biilliant pen to 



THE RIGHT CRITICS. 319 



the Co'irrier des Etats Unis, the idea seems to have been 
dropped ; but we trust to hear of it again. While nothing is 
more necessarily unjust, and more to be frowned upon, than 
criticism of any sort of distinction, either of society or individu- 
als, by the ignorant or merely envious, there is great propriety, as 
we have above endeavored to show, in its being done by those who 
share, or have a right to understand it. It was on this ground 
that we copied, last week, the " Sketches of New York Society," 
by Mr. Bristed. That clever article, written with " rather 
venturesome freedom," as we said, directed its artillery against 
positive evils of society — against improper dances, American 
excess of family quarrels, American excess of slander, married 
women's smoking and flirting, and the arbitrary and tyrannical 
exercise of exclusiveness. We repeat, that there should be no 
class so privileged, in a republic, that such faulty and dangerous 
examples should not be publicly criticised. 

We have not yet spoken of the formidable evil at which the 
article in question strikes an indirect blow — an evil upon which we 
are glad to see war made, in any shape, and which we hope to see 
assailed more definitely by the same leisurely and effective pen. 
With no time or space at present to enlarge upon what we allude 
to, we will briefly mention it, as the fashionable exclusiveness, 
exercised so insullingly and tyrannically at American watering- 
jilaccs. This is carried to an extent which would be incredible in 
Europe, and a tithe of v/hich would not be ventured upon by the 
nobility assembled at any Spa of Germany. Thousands of most 
respectable persons avoid Newport and Saratoga, from disgust at 
the assumption of a few ruling fashionables, their monopoly of 
everything in the way of privilege, and their systematized plan of 
creating an exclusive circle, to whose favour every visitor must 



320 WATERING-PLACE ABUSES. 



either be subject, or suffer marked disparagement and inconve- 
nience. With all due allowance, as to the right of every one to 
refuse his acquaintance to whom he pleases, it is a right which 
should be exercised modestly and unobservedly. Those who go 
to a public watering-place in America, go to meet the public on 
what is equal ground. However exclusive at home, they have no 
right to let their exclusiveness offend any one there. The 
introduction of a dance which offends the sense of propriety of 
the many — the concerted refusal to stand up, if a lady not of 
" their set" is on a certain part of the floor — the altering of the 
arrangements of the house to suit the habits and wishes of a few — 
the expensive and glaring ostentation — and the thousand trifling 
tyrannies and impertinences by which fashionable supremacy, at 
Newport and Saratoga, is, each year, more and more asserted and 
maintained, form an evil which it seems amazing should have 
existed so long. We have annually tried to find time for calling 
attention to this subject, and one of the chief reasons for our 
eagerly copying the article we speak of, last* week, was its able 
picturing of this very oligarchy so extraordinary in a republio. 



USAGES, ETiaUETTE, ETC. 

That etiquette in London need not necessarily be etiquette in 
New York, is an assumption that our adolescent country is now 
old enough to make. The absence of a Queen, a Court, and 
Orders of Nobility, gives us a freedom from trammel, in such 
matters, which would warrant quite a different school of polite 
usages and observances of ceremony. Yet, up to the present 
time, we have followed the English punctilios of etiquette, with 
almost as close a fidelity as if we were a suburb of London. 

The almost, in the last sentence, points to no very definite 
difference- —but there is one little beginning of a very good novelty 
of usage, which our distant readers may be amused to hear of, 
perhaps, but which we should like to see ripen into an American 
speciality of politeness. We refer to the manner in which 
" distinguished strangers" are looked up and invited to parties. 
Let us detail the process, and the position of the gentleman who 
holds the stranger's key to New York society, with the circum- 
stantiality which the custom, of which it is possibly the basis, 
properly deserves. 

The first thing which a lady does, who intends to give a 
fashionable party in New York, is to send for " Mr. Brown." 



322 FIRST STEP FOR A PARTY. 

If there are any of the more distant of our fifty thousand readers 
who have never heard of Mr. Brown, it is quite time they had. 
This out-door Manager of the Stylish Balls of our great city, is a 
fine-looking and portly person, who, in a certain sense, is Usher 
also to the most select portal of " another and better world," 
being the Sexton of G-race Church, the most fashionable and 
exclusive of our metropolitan " Courts of Heaven." Mr. Brown, 
we should add, is a person of strong good sense, natural air of 
command, and as capable of giving advice, upon the details of a 
party, as was ever the famous " Beau Nash," of Bath, to whose 
peculiar functions Mr. Brown's are the nearest modern approxi- 
mation. 

Mr. Brown comes, at the summons, and takes a look at the 
premises. Whether the supper is to be laid, up stairs or down ; 
where the music is to be bestowed, to be best heard and take the 
least room ; what restaurateur, confectioner and florist are to be 
employed ; where to find the extra china, silver and waiters — these 
are but the minor details upon which he gives his professional 
counsel. He is then consulted as to the guests. His knowledge 
of who is well or ill, who is in mourning for a death or a failure, 
who has friends staying with them, and what new belle has come 
out with such beauty or fortune as makes it worth while to send 
her family a card, is wonderfully exact; and, of course, he can 
look over the list of the invited and foretell the probable 
refusals and acceptances, and suggest the possible and advisable 
enlargements of acquaintances. But this is not all, and we have 
mentioned thus much, only to explain the combining circumstances 
that give Mr. Brown his weight of authority. Besides all this, 
he makes a business of keeping himself " well booked up," as to 
the strangers in town. How he does it we have no idea ; but, 



MR. BROWN. 323 



upon the quality, manners, place of belonging, means, encum- 
brances, and objects of travel, of all tbe marked guests at the 
principal Hotels, he can give j'ou list and programme, with a 
degree of prompt correctness that is as sui'prising as it is useful. 
Of course it is the list from which invitations are made, and (as 
no man who can afford to give a Ball can afford also to make 
morning calls) jNIr. Brown takes the cards of the father of the 
family and leaves them " in person" on the distinguished 
strangers. A man of more utility, or in the distribution of more 
influence, than our friend Mr. Brown, could hardly be picked from 
the New York Directory. It will explain, by the way, a pheno- 
menon about which questions arc constantly asked, to mention 
that the pier-cing whistle, which is heard every few moments 
outside the door during a fashionable party, is Mr. Brown's 
summons to the servant standing within. His own stately figure, 
wrapped in his voluminous overcoat, is stationed on the front step 
throughout the evening, and he opens carriage doors, summons 
th-j house servant with his whistlo, and ushers in the guests, with 
a courteous manner and a polite word that would well become the 
nobleman who is the "Gold Stick in Waiting" at the Court of 
Her JMajesty. When the party breaks up, he knows where 
stands every body's eaniige, and it is called up, as each one 
appears ou the threshold, with an order and prompt readiness that 
is no small iiiiproveiiient upon the confusion and cold-catching of 
times gone by. 

Our ri'ad.Ms will porhaps have agroed. as they have kept along 
with us, tliat 31 r. Biowu is " an excellent Institution," We 
should never be su;e, of course, of getting so able and discreet 
a man to .succeed him, were hi.s duties fairly organized, (by the 
tiiJio of his dep'.-ecated doceasC;) into a regular profession; but 



324 CUSTOM OF HOSPITALITY. 



tlie experiment would be worth while. Hospiialily to strangers u 
a principle, for the exercise of which we should be proud to see a 
regular system first invented in America. The Hotels are never 
without agreeable people, whom it would be delightful to be able 
habitually to approach, {via Brown,) and so spice and vary our 
society, while we treat strangers with a courtesy and kindness that 
would do us honor. 

It is not without proper modesty, and deference to hisjher 
authority, of course, that we offer the foregoing facts and 
suggestions as topics of 'conversation. 



ETIQUETTE, USAGE, ETC. 

An answer to the following letter might be given among 
" notices to cd|[^Q^poadents," but, as it touches a general 
principle worthr saying a word upon, we quote it as a text to a 
little sermon on proposiiions of acquaintance. A " subscriber" 
thus addresses us : — • 



" Will you give me your opinion upon a point which has caused no little 
discussion in our family circle ? A party of ladies are passing through New 
York. While stopping at a hotel, we call upon them ; they are strangers 
personally, but connected in a family relation, which makes our call upon 
them desirable. We find them out, and leave our cards. They leave town 
immediately, but send cards, with written messages of regret. We subse- 
quently visit the town in which they reside. Shall we send cards apprising 
them of our visit, call upon them, or wait for them to discover it by some 
sort of magnetism ? 

Being an old man, and rather antedeluvian in my ideas of etiquette, one 
daughter governs me sometimes, and then again another. Upon this point I 
agreed to leave the adjustment of the affair to your decision, to which my 
daughters both agreed, having full confidence in your judgment. 

Yours, truly 

A Constant Subsckiber," 



326 IMPORTED SUPERFLUITIES. 



To get rid of imported superfluiiies of etiquette is the first thing 
to do, (we venture to premise,) for the proper understanding or 
regulation of American politeness. Things are right or necessary 
in London and Paris, which are wrong or ridiculous in New York. 
Most of our books on etiquette, moreover, being foreign reprints, 
or compiled from foreign authorities, the ordinary notions of 
politeness, even in America, are formed upon the standards which 
regulate Courts and aristocracies. 

In countries where there are barriers in society which cannot 
be passed, there is reason in putting many difficulties and ceremo- 
nies in the way of making new acquaintances. A shop-keeper, 
or tradesman of any description, is looked upon in London, for 
instance, as an impossible visiting acquaintance for any one of the 
gentry. A merchant who is a millionaire, and who is just 
tolerated in Court society for his immense wealth, is an inaccessi- 
ble acquaintance for smaller merchants. Artists are couited and 
invited, and their wives rejected and overlooked by the same 
circles. Literary men are, individually, on a footing with nobles 
and diplomatists, while their relatives are inferiors whom they 
would not dare to introduce to these their noble intimates. 
Those who live upon their incomes, and those who live by 
industry in business, are two classes impassably separated. It is 
understood and admitted, that it would be an inconvenience and 
an impropriety for the barriers between these divided ranks to bo 
crossed. The etiquettes and ceremonies, therefore, which, in old 
countries, form the trench of non-acquaintance, are to prevent 
contact which the custom of ages has decreed to be unfit and 
irreconcilable. 

• That books of etiquette, based upon these mouldy distinctions, 
are unsuitable guides for Uie politeness of our young and fresh 



MAKING ACQUAINTANCES. 327 



republic, the reader need not be told. Retaining all the common 
sense, and all the consideration for others, which European 
etiquette contains, there is still a large proportion of rubbish and 
absurdity, which we should at once set aside — our slowness to do 
this, by the way, being the national fault which Lord Carlisle, in 
his late lecture on America, described as " a tame and implicit 
submission to custom and opinion." 

To our correspondent's query we would say, (briefly) that any 
proposition of acquaintance, from one respectable American to 
another, is a compliment to the receiver. No such proposition is 
likely to be made^ except by such as know the proper conditions 
of acquaintance to exist, nor is it likely to be declined, except by 
those who are so doubtful of their own position that they fear to 
receive acquaintances except through the medium of those above 
them. By any standard that can be tolerated in a republic, (we 
.'ihould suppose,) it is perfectly proper to leave a card, or to send 
^ card with an invitation, to any one whom you may wish, or 
think it would be reasonable, to propose acquaintance. One or 
the other of two people must make the advance ; and we fancy 
that the probability of a first step of this kind being repelled — 
compliment as it is — is very much overrated. The one who 
declined it, if it ever occurred, would be the one, probably, whose 
station in society was the least secure — (reasonable equality of 
apparent respectability, and no covert objection between the 
parties, of course, presupposed.) 

The same reasoning applies, wc think, to speaking without 
introductions. Any two persons who have a mutual friend might 
Dot be suitable acquaintances, in England — but they are, in 
America. Two guests at a party given by a third person, are 
sufficiently introduced, for this country, by the fact of meeting 



328 IMPROVEMENT OP BARRIER. 



under the roof of a fellow-countryman who invited both as his 
equals. As they stand together in the crowd, or have opportunity 
for a polite service, one to the other, it is absurd, as well as 
injurious to the master of the house, to make the party stupid by 
waiting for formal introduction before any act of civility or 
agreeableness. America should improve on that point of English 
etiquette. Our correspondent's more particular inquiries are 
easily answered, according to the principles we have thus laid 
down. The first call upon those who had arrived from another 
city, was a courteous -propriety. It is always such, to call, 
unintroduced, upon strangers in town, with motives of hospitality. 
The call was as courteously acknowledged, and, on going to the 
city where those lived who had thus responded to their politeness, 
the residents should have been apprised of the arrival of the 
strangers, by cards enclosed in an envelope, or left at the door. 
The response is thus delicately left at the option of the persons 
called on ; but the case would be very rare in which it were not 
acknowledged by an immediate call, or a note explanatory of 
illness or other hindrance. 

Fastidiousness, for a republic, (we may add,) is quite 
sufficiently guarded, by the easy falling ofi", from acquaintance, of 
those who find that they are not congenial. Where the only 
distinctions are made by difference in character and refinement 
the barriers are better placed inside than outside an introduction. 



SOCIETY, THIS WINTER. 

There is a ne\7 feature in the gay life of New York — cne of 
those endless varieties of lighter shading which compensate for the 
as endless sameness of the main outlines of society — and, while 
the novelty is, in itself, a refreshing improvement, we are not sure 
that the increasing knowingness^ of which it is but one pencilling 
in many, will better, altogether, the tone of our American 
picture of gayety. We refer to the definite separation, which 
has come about this winter, between Conversation-dom and 
Boys-and-girls-dom — the prevalence of soirees where " the children 
are not asked," and of balls where " none are invited but those 
who dance." 

Society has hitherto been a game with but one stake in it — 
matrimony ; and, that it should be unattractive, to those for whom 
success had removed this only interest in its chances, was, 
perhaps, primitively, quite as well. Young mothers went to bed 
instead of going to balls, and young fathers rested from the cares 
of business, instead of adding a gay man's waking night to a 
busy man's waking morning — a " burning of candle at both ends" 
which could ill be afforded. The only sufferers, by this under- 
done state of society, have been the intellectually gay^ who need 



330 CHANGE IN GAYETY. 



evening parties for the interchange of wit and intelligence, and to 
whom the conversation of a New York ball was a six-hours' 
scream of half-heard sentences, against a band of music and two 
or three hundred elevated juvenile voices. Those, of course, 
whose pleasure in vicinity and utterance depended at all on 
intelligibleness, either of words or sympathies, were soon weary 
of balls ; and, as there was no other form of gayety, (except 
" bull-and-bear" dinners, where stocks and stomachs were the 
only exchanges of magnetism,) they " gave up society." 

Owing immediatdy to what, we could not positively say — ■ 
possibly, to two or three brilliant women who established 
appreciative circles which must needs have a sphere in which to 
revolve, but owing remotely , no doubt, to the rapid Westwardizing 
of European refinement — there was an understood recognition, in 
the early part of this winter, of the need of some more adolescent 
variety in the children's high life of New York. The season 
opened with what was one result of this new impulse — a round 
of balls for dancers only. The more definite indication, however, 
was a card issued for a series of four parties, on successive 
Tuesdays, at the house of the most tasteful and accomplished 
leader of New York society — at which there was no dancing and 
no band of music, no set supper beyond an elegantly-served table 
to which the guests resorted at pleasure, and no single people 
invited of the class who dance only. This was a most favorable 
and successful overture to a new era ; for, more brilliant and 
agreeable parties, than these four, have never been given in this 
city, and the admiration of the tone and management of them 
was universal. The Conversation Epoch of society, we may 
fairly say, is begun. . 

That our new shape of gayety will retain, for a while, some 



SOCIETY TONE OF VOICE. 331 



colour of the former, is to be expected. There are 'teen-ish 
peculiarities, which foreigners observe in our manners, which will 
not all vanish with the disunion of school-room and drawing-room. 
But there is one, which has arisen from the long-endured 
disproportion between the bands of music and the apartments in 
which they are heard — a society tone of voice most unmusically 
loud — to which it is, perhaps, worth while to call attention 
without leaving it to the slower correction of removed first 
causes. As most persons know, although they may not have 
given shape to the idea, it is much more difficult to be agreeable 
on a strained key of the voice, than when conversing in a natural 
tone and without need of repetition. The effort and the artificial 
cadences affjct the character of the thoughts expressed. All the 
• tendrils of meaning, in which lie the grace of what is said, are 
cut off for the sake of brevity, and conversation is reduced to its 
mere stem — a poor representation of what its fair growth should 
exhibit. It is the commonest remark of a foreigner, that " well- 
bred people in this country talk singularly loud in society," and 
this might be A'^ariously interpreted — for, while it certainly 
expresses the innocence of those who are not afraid to be over- 
heard, it might be understood, also, as a dread of betraying, by 
too timid a tone, a consciousness of superior society. A hint on 
such a subject, is enough, however, and the charming ease and 
variety of conversation in which the meaning is aided by the play 
of tones, will be felt by every lady, the very first time she gives 
her attention to the experiment. 



SHAWL ARISTOCRACY. 

The degree to which ladies care more for each other'^s opinion 
of their gentility of appearance, than for the opinion of gentlemen^ 
on the same point, is, at least, equal to the difference between a 
French shawl and a Cashmere — one worth fifty dollars and the 
other worth from five hundred to a thousand — for, though no man 
knows the imitation from the real shawl, as he sees it worn, a 
fashionable woman without a Cashmere, feels like a recruit 
unarmed and unequipped. The pilgrimage to Mecca, which 
entitles to the privilege of wearing the green turban, would not, 
by the majority of women, be considered too much to undergo for 
this distinction — recognizable, though it be, by female eyes only. 
" She had on a real Cashmere'''' would be sweeter, to numbers of 
ladies, as a mention when absent, than " she had a beautiful 
expression about her mouth," or " she had such loveable 
manners," or " she is always trying to make somebody happier," 
or " she is too contented at home to care much about society." 
It is, moreover, a portable certificate of character and position. 
A lady " with a real Cashmere on," would be made way for, at a 
counter of Stewart's- — differently received when introducing herself 
at a first call — sooner offered the head seat in a pew — differently 



ART OF WEARING A SHAWL. 333 



criticised, as to mannors, and very diflFerently estimated in a guess 
as to who sbe might be, in any new city or place of public 
resort where she chanced to be a stranger. The prices of the 
best Cashmeres vary from four hundred to fifteen hundred dollars.* 
There are two plausible arguments in their favor, usually pleaded 
by ladies — fiist, that they fall in more graceful folds than any 
other shawl, and have an *' undefinable air of elegance," and, 
second, that, as they never wear out, they are heir-looms which 
can be bequeathed to daughters. The difference between a 
thousand dollar shawl given to a daughter after twenty years' 
wear, and the same thousand dollars invested for a daughter and 
given to her with twenty years' interest, puts this latter argument 
upon its truest ground ; but one word as to the superior 
hccomingoiess of Cashmeres. 

There are very few women, out of France, who wear any 
shawl becomingly — for it requires either the taste of an artistic 
mind, or a special education, to know its effects and arrange it to 
show the figure to advantage — but a Cashmere, by the very 
pliability which is subservient to grace, betrays awkwardness or a 
bad figure just as readily. For a round back, flat chest, or arms 
held at inelegant angles, there is more concealment in the French 
shawl, than in the slighter tissue of an India one ; but, either way, 
we fancy, the difference is too trifling to be recognizable by one 
person in a thousand. As to the beauty of color and texture, we 
are very sure that, to menh eyes, the duU complexion of a 

^ It is a curious foreshadowing of the anticipation of income by which such 
expensive articles are sometimes obtained, that the finest and costliest of 
these shawls are made from the down of the lambs taken from the womb 
before birth. 



334 TRUE VALUE OF A CASHMERE. 



Cashmere conveys the impression of a cover-all, grown somewhat 
shabby, and which the wearer would not have put on if she had 
"expected to meet anybody." There is not one lady in a 
hundred, of those who own Cashmeres, who do not look better 
dressed, (to most female and all male eyes,) in any other out-of- 
door covering. 

As our city readers know, there has been a three days' 
exhibition and auction of Cashmere shawls, in the large hall over 
the theatre at Niblo's. The vessel in which this precious cargo 
was being conveyed to' England, was abandoned at sea by the 
crew, and, an American ship securing the cargo and bringing it 
to this country, the goods were sold by the British Consul, to 
arrange salvage and remit the remainder to right owners. The 
shawls were hung upon lines, up and down the immense hall, and, 
between these aisles of Cashmere, the fashionable ladies of the 
city promenaded, with close scrutiny and comparison of opinion — 
(and with a degree of keen interest that we should like to see 
given to a gallery of pictures ! ) Having, ourself, fortunately 
secured the company of Mr. Flandin, who was the only importer 
of Cashmeres to this country for twenty or thirty years, (and 
whose eye, for better reasons, is familiar with the Parisian grace 
of a shawl's wear, and its value in beeomingness,) we took the 
opportunity to enrich our knowledge in the matter. After having 
all the advantages of the India fabric pointed out to us, however, 
and hearing, from our well-informed friend, what class were the 
purchasers, and what made the diiference of hundreds of dollars 
in the cost of shawls whicli to a common eye would seem of equal 
value, we came away satisfied that a better present could be njade 
with five hundred dollars, than to bury it in a Cashmere shawl — 



THINGS OF MORE VALUE. 335 



that things better worth having could be had for a quarter of the 
money — and that the arbitrary aristocracy, which is based upon 
the wearing of them, is one of those illusory valuations which 
this common-sense age is constantly on the look-out to put 
down. 



SUGGESTION FOR THE OPERA. 

The world is weaning. It is necessary, now, that there 
should be reason, even in its amusements. We know nothing 
that so marks the time in which we live, as the extension of a 
certain business prejudice — the prejudice against things that 
" don't pay" — into the hitherto irrational regions of display and 
pleasure. It is the fashion in conversation to ingeniously dissect 
the usages of society, and tell what is " absurd" — what is " a 
bore." Those who entertain and give parties are making inquiry, 
not where to get the pinkest champagne and the largest /bz'e gras, 
but how to get together the agreeable and the worth being 
agreeable to. The young men " see no reason" in the prejudice 
against God's gift of beard. The ladies are beginning to " see 
no reason" in not protecting their ancles against mud and wet, 
by short dresses and pantalettes in the country. There is a 
whisper that there is no " reason" in accommodating New York 
hours to the convenience of the English Parliament — the going 
to a party at midnight being a London fashion of commencing 
gayety at the adjournment hour of the Lords and Commons. 
The creeping-in fashion of the Tyrolese hat is a struggle for 
some reasonable becomingness in that article of stereotyped 



OPERA NONSENSE. 337 



absurdity, xlnything may be done now — even an etiquette 
violated or a usage dispensed with — if the innovator can show a 
reason. Throughout society and the world, just now, we mean to 
say, there is a war against prejudices, and in favor of bringing 
every thing to its best use and simply true valuation. 

In addressing ourself, (as we trust our readers credit us for 
usually striving to do,) to this spirit of the age, we feel called 
upon to recognize the amount of real interest given to some 
things which, (in Superficial-solemn-dom,) are classed as " trifles ;" 
and among which, without further gcneraliziDg and defining, are 
the arrangements for the fashionable Italian Opera. "We have a 
suggestion to make as to the usages of Opera-going, with a view 
to getting rid of such portions of its nonsense as can be dispensed 
with — much of what the wise call " Opera nonsense," being the 
respectable shadows of things the world will have, and have its 
way in, and with which, of course, we are not inclined uselessly to 
quarrel. 

To come at once to our point — there is a class of the most 
refined and respectable people, who would like to go very 
frequently to the Opeia, but who are prevented from so doing, by 
the usage necessity of going in full dress. The Opera being 
partly a large evening party and .partly an entertainment of 
music, the predominance of full dress tacitly administers that 
sort of rebuke to a less ceremonious costume, that the wearer is 
made to feel uncomfortable — uncomfortable enough, that is to 
say, to make her unwilling to go again except ii\ fulldress. But 
— as a lady in full dress must have, 1st, a cavalier m body-coat 
and white gloves ; 2d, a carriage of her own or a hired one at two 
dollars the evening ; 3d, a hair-dresser at a dollar or a head-dres? 
at five dollars and upwards ; 4th, shoulders whose beauty and 
1' 



33S PROPOSAL OF NEW ETIQUETTE. 



salubrity will bear exposure ; and 5th, spirits to encounter 
general conversation and slight acquaintances between the Acts — 
there are many of the best people in town and truest lovers of 
music who feel that, at this cost and trouble, the Opera " don't 
pay." Many a charming woman, not very well or in very good 
spirits, would like to go and sit through an Opera, if it were 
simply to put on her shawl and visiting bonnet, tax her husband 
only to take his hat and lay aside his cigar, and go and return in 
an unblushing omnibus. Many an invalid would be delighted and 
refreshed with an Opera, if she could escape attention while 
listening to it. There do exist, we are persuaded, those " fabulous 
beings," women who wish to see and not be seen — (some evenings, 
perhaps we should qualifiedly say, and under some circumstances) 
— and for these, and others who have the same feeling for twenty 
other reasons, an Opera which is fidl dress all over the house^ is a 
badly-arranged public amusement. Their patronage, moreover — 
not over-stated, we should say, at a hundred seats a night — is lost 
to the Manager. 

Of course we are incapable of the aggravation of speaking of an 
evil except to suggest a remedy. With nothing to propose to the 
Manager or the Committee, we suggest, to more paramount 
Fashionable . Usage, that the parcpict of the Ojpera should he a 
place for demi-toilelle — that ladies who appear there should be 
considered as intending to escape attention, and not be visited 
except by previous understanding — that shawls, bonnets, and 
high-necked di-csses should be the parqucc dress for ladies, and 
frock-coats and colored gloves the parqud dress for gentlemen — 
and that all who appear, there and thus, should be Operatically 
" not at home" — exempt, that is to say, from all leavings of seat 
for interchange of civilities, and all critic* -uis of toilette. The 



FREED OjNI OF PARQUET. 339 



place itself favours this difference of costume from that of the sofaa 
and boxes — central as the parquet is, the heads alone being 
visible, in a confused medley, from the other parts of the house, 
and a person being likelier to escape observation in this closely- 
packed mass, than even in the amphitheatre of the third tier. It 
is, also, (we should say to any lady friend,) too close and chance 
a neighbourhood for low-necked dresses and short sleeves, and 
what we propose is therefore more proper, besides being consistent 
with all foreign usage in such matters. 

To be able to enjoy the Opera with or without its society, is the 
freedom we think desirable. We have not mentioned the 
convenience it would be to a gentleman, who might like to slip 
away from other engagements for an hour — and hear an Act of an 
Opera and take a look at the array of beauty — without the chance 
of seeming, by his dress, not to belong to the class which compose 
the audience. Strangers, too, in full dress and without an 
acquaintance in the house, look awkwardly — for there is an 
incongruity between white gloves and nobody to speak to, which 
colored gloves, some how or other, do not suggest ; and of course 
there should be a part of the house (of not inferior dignity or 
price) in which the latter is "the only wear." 

We leave our readers to follow out the rationale of the matter. 



COMING OPERA SEASON. 

In a visit to town which we made — (like a cook's look iato the 
oven) — in August, we used our one evening among the bricks, for 
the enjoyment of what is not found among the green leaves — an 
Opera. Tedesco at the Broadway was, for that time of year, like 
woodcock out of season, most inviting ; and, (whether from the 
rarity, or from its being the only luxury we could think of within 
municipal limits, or from the excellence of the Havanese Dudu, 
or from the verdant freshness of interest with which we sat down 
to it,) we never enjoyed Opera more — no, not in Paris or London. 
Those delicious low notes of Tedesco's, certainly sweep and air 
the seldom visited apartments of the soul's ear most deliciously. 
We are not bent now, however, upon writing a criticism. We 
say nothing of orchestra or chorus. The spirit which troubles 
the Bethesda of our inkstand at present, is a small two-line 
notice which we saw upon the bill of the play, that evening, and 
of which we have lost the precise words, though the following was 
the meaning : — It notified the public, that, at this Opera, there 
were no exclusive seats, nor other privileged arrangements likely to 
give offence. However phrased, it was meant to draw a distinc- 
tion between this Opera and the Opera which had been the scene 



HOSTILITY TO WHITE GLOVES. 34I 



of the viot, and was, of course, a popular appeal to what is thought 
to be an existing feeling on the subject. 

Now, like love, disease, fire and war, the beginnings of popular 
discontents are small, and may be quelled or diverted if taken 
early. Obsta princij>iis is an old Latin rule with which a man 
might almost govern the world. It really seems to us worth 
while to enquire, (Astor-Place Riot and the subsequent expres- 
sions of public feeling considered,) whether there is not, now 
growing, in the popular feeling, a needless and unreasonable 
hostility to the wealthier class, and whether its accidental causes 
had not better be analyzed — explained by the press — and removed, 
as far as possible, in the ai-rangements of public places. 

We speak of a needless hostility, for we are yet to learn that, 
though this is a free country as to religion and franchise, it is not 
free as to dress, equipage, or display. We are yet to learn that 
envy is so rank a weed in republics that a man must conceal his 
wealth to escape persecution. We are yet to learn that, in liberal 
America, a citizen is not free to spend his money as he pleases, 
glove himself to his fancy, wear his beard to his liking, choose 
whom he likes, or whom he can, for friends and acquaintances, 
and purchase whatever is for sale in the way of opportunities for 
public amusement. And yet, to show how such matters may be, 
see how it was in England, only a hundred and fifty years ago ! 
Ileresby, in his Historical Memoranda, and under date of 1685, 



" Gentlemen were now in a most unprecedented manner assaulted in the 
very streets ; one had a powder thrown into his eyes which deprived him 
of sight; another had his throat cut by two nr,en, though neither of these 
gentlemen had given the least visible provocati* n or offense to the 
aggressors. " 



342 PRIVILEGED SEATS 



Civilization is too far advanced, and, we repeat, America too 
liberal, to allow of any proscription of a class, high or low, for 
reasons not connected with law or morals. Were it otherwise, 
the country would very soon feel it, for a man would stay here but 
to viake a fortune, and go to a more refined and liberal land to 
enjoy it. Still, however, there are offences of one class against 
another — of the rich by the poor and of the poor by the rich — and 
as these occur principally in public places, where people should 
meet upon a common footing as to purchase and privilege, the 
Managers are bound to see that the arrangements are republican 
and inoffensive. " Exclusiveness," unpopular as it is, is a 
republican right, subject to nothing but ridicule, when exercised 
in a man's house, equipage and personal acquaintance ; but any 
privilege given, in a place of amusement, to one man above 
another, for fashionable pre-eminence merely and without compe- 
tition of purchase, is un-republican and wrong, and, with that, 
we think, the public have a right to be discontented. 

The New York public is not silly enough, of course, to make 
war, otherwise than by expressioij^ of opinion, upon the trifles 
against which so many paragraphs have been latterly aimed, such 
as " white gloves," " liveried servants," " moustaches" and 
" opera-glasses" — a citizen having as much right to indulge in any 
of these as a Puseyite to wear a straight collar, or a " Mose" to 
carry his coat on his arm — but these are, notwithstanding, 
intensitivcs, and though they would be sufficiently tolerated by 
themselves, they aggravate the offensiveness of any real ground of 
complaint against the class whose peculiarities they are, and can 
only be made innocent by the removal of the small offence which 
they intensify. The. nut-shell which contains it all, at present, 



OFFEKCK TO BE AVOIDED. 343 



seems to be the privileged seats iield for the Opera season by 
subscribers. 

It is our own opinion, that, though seats for the season are 
great conveniences — (for easy finding by acquaintances, for 
cushioning to suit invalids, and for saving of nightly trouble to 
secure places) — ^yet, if the vrhole class of occasional comers to 
the Opera, and strangers in town, are thereby excluded from the 
best seats, and offended, they should not be permitted in the 
arrangements. The subscribers, and the best seats, are but few. 
The occasional visitors and strangers are many. "We wiU not 
stop to show how this is good policy , for the success of the Opera, 
but we will add that we think it also a proper concession of 
feeling. In a republic there must be mutual yielding, as far as 
possible, to the prejudices of classes ; and editors and managers, 
with this principle in their minds, may suggest and arrange 
remedies for all present likelihoods of discord. With a charming 
example of this spirit, in our heroic and common-sense President 
himself, we close these hasty comments on a matter which we 
should have liked the opportunity to discuss more at our leisure. 



SUGGESTIONS OF MAY-DA¥ IN NEW YORK. 

We have had many a Maying frolic in the country, where, with 
half a score of bright-faced laughing girls, we have " prevented 
the dawning of the morning," and brushed the dew from acres of 
flowering meadovfs, to gather the fresh-peeping violets, and 
" make roses grow in our cheeks." Blessed days ! we would not 
cease to remember them, for an untouched section of California — 
for there is a gleam of sunshine in every such remembrance, 
which has power to chase away the shadows of years, and make 
us quite a child again. But — May-day in New York — was ever 
a contrast so irreconcilable .^ Who would not cry with Job — 
" let it not come into the number of the months .^" It is a day 
which concentrates, in its single brief cycle, the dust, the labour, 
the burdens, the miseries, the disappointments, the vexations of 
two years — the remembered evils of the past, and the anticipated 
troubles of the coming. As if " quarter day," and the hard face 
of a querulous landlord were not enough to season one day's trial, 
it is four quarter-days in one, and moving — washing — scrubbing — 
scouring — house-cleaning-and-putting-to-rights-day, to boot. On 
that single day, half the houses in New York are turned up-side- 
down and inside out, and emptied, with all their living and move- 
able contents into the other half, which, at the same time, are 



MAKING ACQUAINTANCES. 345 



undergoing the same ejective operation, and pouring themselves 
into the first half. It is the harvest-day of carmen, who, for that 
day, are released from all deference to the established tariff of 
fees, and charge every man what is right in his own eyes. It ia 
the annual dooms-day of all domestic husbands, and quiet, 
orderly old bachelors, who dread its coming worse than the 
plague, or the cholera, and who, for the month before, and the 
month following, are haunted with the nightmare of change and 
disorder, and can scarcely tell whether they have a home or not. 
To the ladies — but we forbear — patient soulg ! they never 
complain of a bustle, and we have no means of guessing " how it 
seems" to them. What demon could have possessed good old 
Santa Claus to allow such a day to come into the Dutchman's 
calendar. The landlords must have given him chloroform, or the 
good-natured saint would have vetoed it, with a huge oath for 
emphasis. 

It was recently given in evidence of insanity, in Paris, that a 
man had hired a lot of ground, and, placing upon it an omnibus 
without wheels, lived in the vehicle, to his entire satisfaction. 
We should strongly impugn the evidence. An Indian, accus- 
tomed to a wigwam, would find any abode reasonably sufficient 
which would accommodate " twelve inside," and children at 
discretion, and which had a door, eleven windows, a hole at the 
top and comfortable cushions. The pre-pos-te-rous number of 
things which people collect together as necessaries of life, would, 
to a savage, be inexplicable. 

But the chief calamity of a May-moving, we think, is the 

painful suspension of belief in the value of property — the most 

sacred furniture being so demeaned and profaned by confused 

displacement and vile pi'oximity, that it seems impossible we can 

15* 



346 IMPORTED SUPERFLUITIES. 



ever regain our respect for it. It is like cutting off a man's nose 
and laying it on the floor ; or drawing a tooth and packing it in a 
basket. The articles have anything hut the same value as 
previously. 

Ladies having a greater facility of re-producing displaced 
associations, and it being desirable that gentlemen should retain a 
reverence for their household gods, we ven ture to query : — 
whether it would not be an advisable custom for the wife to 
superintend the moving in toto, sending the husband to a hotelj 
with order of absence from May 1st till farther advices. Is not 
this foreshadowingly hinted at, in the words of an old English 
writer, who, (making no mention of woman,) in his account of 
the festivities of May morning, says, " Every man, except 
impediment, would walk into the meadows on May day .?" As it 
is, one sighs for some place like Psalmanazar's island of Formosa 
to retreat to : — 

" Oh for some fair Formosa, such as he, 
The young Jew fabled of, i' the Indian sea, 
By nothing but its name of beauty known, 
And which poor husbands might make all their own ', 
Their May-day kingdom — ^take its beds and stands, 
Et cetera, into their own meek hands. 
And have, at least, one earthly corner quiet. 
While ladies move, who are less troubled by it." 



The eruption on the front doors tells us that Spring is at 
hand — the placards of " To Let," in the city, corresponding with 
the outbreak of crocuses in the country, as a sign of the season. 
There is no more significant index of the variableness of fortunes 
and worldly conditions, in this country, than the general change 



PROGRESS UP-TOWN. 347 



of residence in May. The majority, probably, change for the 
better, as the majority of citizens are doubtless improving in their 
circumstances, from year to year — but it is a question whether 
habits of restlessness, injurious to the important feeling of homCj 
are not bred by these annual removals. " Put it 0' one side to 
think of." 

There is a certain peculiarity, too, which is often charged upon 
New York, and which may possibly have grown out of this 
custom. How many families are there, who have " kept moving," 
till they are in houses beyond their means, and unsuitable to their 
style of living } The last house which they finally reach, seems 
to proclaim that they have overshot the mark ; for, dwelling there 
with closed doors, they are literally buried, with four-story 
monuments over their heads — "lost to the friends from whose 
fond side they have been taken," and occupying, of course, only 
the basement, where they are. Up-town is sprinkled thick with 
these four-story sepulchres. How much of that part of the city, 
indeed, might be planted with cypresses, and laid out as the 
cemetery of victims of premature removal, we leave open to 
conjecture. 

The number of degrees of rent and house-dignity, in New 
York, and the corresponding means of those who adopt them, 
would be interesting to know. From board at three dollars a 
week to a rent of three thousand dollars a year, is not an 
uncommon transition during the education of a daughter — (a 
" sliding scale" that has its eflfects!) It is a topic for Hunt's 
Statistical Magazine — the Progress Up-town, with the different 
stopping places and gradations. From the close packed rookeries 
of Gi-reenwich-street to the scaffolding wilderness above Union 
Square — from Over-run-dom to Semi-done-dom. — there are, at 



348 VISITS BY DRESS. 



least, twenty degrees of rent and gentility of location. " Friend, 
go up higher," seems to be the text that contains the moving 
principle of New York — but the Rev. Mr. Beecher, who knows 
how to hitch worldly wisdom into gospel harness, might preach a 
valuable sermon on the danger of too hasty obedience to this 
Scripture injunction. 

A very charming woman, whose toilette had been exceedingly 
admired at a late fashionable party, but to whom no conversation 
had been addressed during the evening, declared to us, while 
waiting for her carriage, that she should acccept invitations 
hereafter by sending her dress and jewels — allowing her superflu- 
ous remainder to go to bed with a book. The appropriateness of 
this economy in New York fashionable society, seemed to us 
worthy of mention in print, and it belongs, in fact, to the spirit of 
anti-needlessness and sensible siibstitution, which is the manifest 
taste and tendency of the times. The strongest argument for a 
family carriage, in England, is the power it gives of attending a 
friend's funeral by equipage — the liveried vehicle, with blinds 
drawn, expressing quite as poignant grief without the owner inside, 
and with a great economy of time and tedium. The poor author's 
reply to his rich host, who pressed the costly meats upon him 
after his appetite was satisfied : — " No, thank you, I'll take the 
rest in money, if you please !" was in the same sensible spirit of 
substitution. 

To button wants upon superfluities, seems to us, in fact, the 
thing for which the age is most ready. We have, for some time, 
thought of making a suggestion of this kind, and we do it more 
confidently, now that the " money crisis" makes it likelier to prove 
aoeptable. 



VACANT PART OF NEW YORK. 349 



Unlike any other city in the world, New York is a crowded 
metropolis, with an uninhabited Persepolis in its midst — a void 
within a plethora — an overstocked ground-level, with a vacant 
city built over it, at from forty to fifty feet elevation. There are 
hundreds of streets of uiioccupied third aiid fourth stories — levels 
which, in France or England, would be populously inhabited. 
There are long blocks of houses, in every part of iip-town, through 
which run uninterrupted lines of floors unoccupied. Thus much 
for the superfluity. 

Now, the crying want of New York is for elegant private 
lodgings. The increasing number of persons who have homes in 
the country, and who wish to pass the winter months in the city, 
but who dislike to subject their families to the publicity of hotels, 
makes this a matter worth calling present attention to. Furnished 
apartments, that can be hired at a moderate annual rent, adapted 
for convenience and comfort only, and to which meals can be sent 
from a restaurant or from a neighbouring establishment main- 
tained for the purpose — apartments where no show is expected, 
and which entail no care — are more needed than any other 
accommodation in this city. The first step has already been 
taken, for the supply of this convenience so common in every 
foreign city, and we were informed, last week, that the profits of 
one enterprising and well-managing person, who has taken several 
bouses, in the neighbourhood of a restaurant, and let them out in 
this way to some of our wealthiest country-house owners, amount- 
ed last year to ten thousand dollars. 

But, the idea, for which we desire that the Court of Common 
Sense should grant us a copyright, is not yet expressed. We 
have shown the superfluity and the want — but there is an obstacle 
to the union of the two. The pride of the dwellers in tall houses 



350 ■ PLAN FOR LODGINGS. 



requires, that they should have the front door to themselvea — 
also the door-plate and bell-handle — also freedom from other 
people's ash-barrel on the sidewalk edge — also the right of entry 
and staircase, privacy of basement and exclusive control of gas, 
Croton, and night-key. These, (with fashionable neighbourhood,) 
constitute the actual and tangible advantages of a " house up 
town." And we propose to continue these, one and all, to the 
present enjoyers of them — proposing only a better use of their 
superfluous upper-stories, thus : — 

Of every five houses in a block, let the central one be taken by 
a landlady of lodgings. The main floor and basement might be 
occupied as a restaurant and cook-shop. The other rooms she 
would let to those who should agree with her for an annual rent, 
paying also for regular service, and for the meals she should 
furnish. Of her neighbours on either side, she should hire the 
up^er stories, opening an access to them from the central house, and 
sealing up the staircases, so as to cut off all communication with 
the families below. In this way, an entry, run through the 
entire block, would be like the long wing of a hotel ; and this 
appropriation of it, known only to the occupants, would be no 
manner of inconvenience to the private residences whose doors 
and staircases were left undisturbed. For " settling" the 
uninhabited third and fourth stories of New York City — for 
colonizing and turning to account the waste prairies over our 
heads — we respectfully and gratuitously submit this plan to the 
Publio. 



ARE OPERAS MORAL. AM ARE PRIMA-DONNAS 
LADIES? 

" The ox is liable to death from swallowing the hairs licked 
from his own body," says Natural History, but there was probably 
a time, during ox-worship in Egypt (supposing human nature to 
have been always the same), when, to have removed such 
superfluous hairs with a curry-comb, would have been called 
profane. In this similitude is fairly presented, we believe, the 
spirit in which any attempts to liberalize moral restrictions are 
usually received in our country. Yet a superfluous and irritating 
excess of restriction, is, we think, the evil from which the whole 
system of morals is most in danger. 

We have once or twice, lately, been led to ask why the Opera 
is not a suitable amusement for the religious and moral, and 
what would be the consequences of putting Opera-music and its 
professors upon the same footing as Art and artists. 

The wife of an eminent clergyman expressed to us, not long 
since, her regret at being precluded from the enjoyment of the 
Opera, and we ventured to inquire whether her husband had any 
scruples as to the intrinsic propriety of her visiting this place of 
amusement. " No !" she said, " tut there are so many excellent 



352 OBJECTIONS TO OPERA. 



people wlio would take offence !" We chance to have, in our 
own acquaintance, a considerable number of these same " excellent 
people ;" and among them, we know of no one, who has an ear 
for music and any remainder of youth, who would not frequent 
the Opera if " Sister So-and-so" would not be likely to " feel 
hurt about it" — Sister So-and-so (on inquiry) having either a 
rheumatism which prevents her " going out of evenings," or not 
taste enough for music to turn a doxology. The stories, or 
subjects of Operas, being properly liable to no interdiction which 
would not apply equally to the reading of history and to the 
admission of general literature into a family, the classing of so 
attractive and refined an amusement among immoralities, looks, to 
the young, like an unsupported and bigoted prejudice. A need- 
less deprivation like this, too, stands, as a drawback, at the door 
of a profession of religion ; and it is not unlikely, besides, to 
awaken a mischievous incredulity as to the soundness of forbid- 
dings, wiser and better, which are enforced, with no more 
emphasis, in its company. 

We were a looker-on at a morning concert, a week or two ago, 
given at the house of Mr. Bajioli, the well-known music-teacher 
of this city. It was intended partly as an exhibition of his 
present pupils ; but, among the performers, were several ladies 
distinguished for their musical accomplishment, who had formerly 
benefitted by his instructions, and one or two professional singers 
— Signorina Truffi among the number. The ladies present, the 
relatives and friends of the scholars, were as select a company, 
for propriety and fashion, as could well have been assembled ; 
but the unusual presence of the prima-donna, in drawing-room 
dress, amid this exclusive crowd of private society, naturally 
suggested comparison and speculation. A woman of a more 



CIVILITIES TO SINGERS. 



aristocratic air than this young and beautiful creature could 
hardly be found. She is handsomer off the stage than cm it, for 
the fresh and maidenly character of her countenance is confused 
by distance and by the tinsel of stage costume. Her face, seen 
near and by daylight, has the unprofaned and unconscious purity 
of private life, while her refined carriage of person and self- 
possessed grace of manners strikingly fit her to be the ornament 
of society the most discriminate. She sat listening while one of 
Mr. Bajioli's pupils sang an air from an Opera in which she 
frequently appears upon the stage, and the simple and uncon- 
scious interest with which she watched the less perfect perform- 
ance of what she could do so well — the eager moyements of her 
lips as she followed the words, and the sympathetic heave of her 
chest and stir of her arms, as if for a gesture, at the points which 
required force and exertion — betrayed a childlike and tender 
sympathy, which we could not but look upon, in this queenly 
woman, with respect and admiration. 

Why, we asked, would not any society be improved, by taking 
up, as persons to cherish and make much of, the gifted and 
accomplished creatures whose natural superiority marks them out 
for this profession ? They are not all of good character, it is 
said — but, because all painters are not of good character, are 
painters, therefore, as a class, excluded from society ? To invite 
an Opera-singer to a party in New York, except as a person hired 
to perform for the amusement of those present, would be consid- 
ered by most people as rather a venturesome risking of the censure 
of "mixed coiupaay," Complimentary civilities tc a prima- 
doua;i, in the presence of other ladies, would so lessen the value 
of a gentleman's attentions, that his female acquaintances would 
be shy of him, till there was time for it to be forgotten. A 



354 APPRECIATION OF ARTISTS. 



woman like Signorina Truffi, known to be a most exemplary 
daughter and perfectly irreproachable in character, comes to 
New York — as gifted and distinguished in her way as Frederika 
Bremer would be, in hers — ^yet receives no attentions from her own 
sex and no hospitalities, except as condescensions, while Miss 
Bremer, should she come to sell her books as Truffi comes to sell 
her music, would be thronged after like a queen. 

They are more liberal in England and France toward musical 
artists, but we want something far better than the English or 
French feeling on the subject — we want a repuhlican appreciation 
of musical genius — an equitable and just moral appreciation — a 
liberal and educated distribution of the honour and favour of society, 
to the gifted of all professions alike. It is something, in Europe, 
that every admirable artist gathers a party of appreciators about 
her, who combine to support and defend her against adverse 
circumstances or professional intrigue and rivalry ; and it makes 
America. a cold and unsympathetic latitude to artists, because we 
have no such generous impulse of combination here ; but there is, 
with it, in Europe, an undisguised condescension of patronage, to 
which genius, of any kind, should scorn to be subjected. This is, 
properly, the country for something better — for getting rid of the 
artificial and oppressive usages based on what the Pilgrims came 
over here to be rid of — and, instead of being outdone, as it is, by 
monarchical liberality to gifted persons, it should have been, long 
ago, an example of what reform a o-epiohlic works in the place-giving 
appreciation of genitos. 

We leave untouched the obvious changes that would be worked 
in Opera-Music and its professors, if Music were fairly adopted, 
in all its beautiful varieties, as a moral art. We thiak the tims 
will very soon come, when the Opera will be separated from other 



SEPARATION OF OPERA. 355 



dramatic amusements, and adopted even by the religious who 
continue to condemn theatres. But we will leave this bearing of 
the subject to our reader's own reflections, or perhaps resume it 
in another article. 



EVENING ACCESS TO -NEAV YORK INFORMATION AND 
AMUSEMENT. 

Cream Market of Mind — Whipple's Lecture — Astor Place Triangle— Palais 
Royal in New York — Concentration of Evening Resort to one Neighbour- 
hood — Convenience ii different Members of a Family having different 
Tastes or Errands — Economy of Social Evenings — Balls, Lectures, Picture 
Galleries — Opera, Theatre, and Supper Rooms under one Roof, etc., etc. 

There is a cream-viarket in New York, to wbicli " institu- 
tion," we feel, the Lectures of the Mercantile Library figuratively 
correspond. What superior minds give us in newspapors, reviews, 
conversation, and even in books, is, comparatively, milk. When 
they prepare to appear, in person, and furnish an hour's measure 
of thought-luxury to the minds of intellectual men, they give us 
cream. It is not from a morning's grazing upon chance-growing 
meditation, that a milch-thinker like Emerson, for instance, can 
give us what we receive in a Lecture. It is the cream of the 
nourishment of many mornings — of many a " chewing of the cad 
of sweet and bitter fancy" — delivered, first, no doubt, in the milk 
of unseparated thoughts, but raised afterwards, by stillness and 
contemplation, to the level from which it may be taken by the 
skimmer of a popular theme, and presented in a Lecture. 



PROPOSAL FOR A "PALAIS-ROYAL." 357 



We see a necessity of the present time — that of " relieving the 
Broadway" of the eye^ and running some of the " omnibus lines" 
of knowledge in at the ear. A man reads, very often, as a fowl 
eats hard corn — his " crop" (of general information) betraying 
afterwards that he has had no idea of taking toll. But he usually 
hears with digestion — possibly from other people's hearing with 
him, and the probability that he may be called upon to discuss 
the subject-matter. There are, in fact, few ways of using an 
hour, by which a man acquires more knowledge, and more sug- 
gestive momentum, than by a Lecture. 

"We missed Whipple's Lecture at the Mercantile Library, the 
other evening, by its being two miles off, and a friend's call "-cut- 
ting off the selvedge" of the dinner hour, on which we had relied 
to get there. Now, is there any man's time, in New York, 
worth as much, from seven to eight o'clock, as the knowledge and 
suggestion he would get from a lecture by such a man as Whipple .'' 
Whoever was not there, we are inclined to think, spent the hour 
without getting all he might have got out of it, and this loss, of 
our own and some other people's, suggested an idea to us, to the 
expression of which we hope presently to arrive. 

The most central and easiest place of access, in this city, for 
evcniog resort, is The Triangle of which one corner is occupied 
by the Astor-Place Opera-house. The railroad passing it on the 
east, and almost every omnibus line ia the city touching it one 
side or the other, it is as accessible by these cheap conveyances 
as by private carriages, and in all weathers and from all quarters. 
It ib the waist of the hour-glass of New Yoik, through which 
pass all thf grains of its sands of locomotion. We do not know 
who owns the fifteen or twenty " lots" that compose it, but, with 
its advantag-'.s for being turned into a little " Palais Royal," wo 



358 COMBINATION OF AMUSEMENTS. 



wonder speculation has not long ago turned it to account. There 
IS space enough in this triangle for both an Opera and a Theatre, 
for two or three lecture rooms and picture galleries, a restau- 
rant and a ball room ; and, if the sidewalk enclosing the whole 
were covered with a roof awning, so that persons might go from 
one part to another without exposure, the audience would be trans- 
ferred and combined continually. A Lecture from half-past six to 
half-past seven, for instance — Opera next door, from half-past 
seven till ten — Assembly, Ball or Supper party, next door again, 
from ten onwards, with a." look in" at the theatre or a picture 
gallery under the same roof — would form a disposal of an evening 
which would at least be a very great accommodation to strangers, 
and, to our thinking, would give a much more civilized facility of 
amusement to the resident inhabitants. 

Let us look at the convenience and economy of the matter a 
little more closely. We need not consider those who keep private 
carriages, for they are few, and, besides, having had their horses 
out all day, and wishing to spare them and their coachman the 
cold work, they oftenest hire a hack carriage for the evening. 
Taking a lady to the Opera, then, is a business of five dollars — 
three for the tickets and two for the carriage.. With increase of 
the crowd at one point, however, the omnibusses would accom- 
modate themselves to the throng, and it would be tlis universal 
habit to make use of them — saving nearly two'dollais, which 
would enable the gentleman to leave his lady at the Opera, and 
look in at the Play, or hear a Lecture, or dance an hour at a 
Ball, or visit one or two Exhibitions, or sup or lounge — varying 
the entertainment of the evening without increasing th'> expense, 
and, of course, combining oftener a gentleman ''s own engagements 
with those of his lady. Other variations of economy and con- 



LBJTURES XTP-TOWN. 359 



venience, in such a concentration, will readily suggest themselves 
to the reader. 

To return to the " cream" of mind, given us in Lectures by 
such men as Emerson, Whipple, Giles, Dana, and others — it is 
a great way to go for it, where it is usually given, at Clinton 
Hall ; and, though it occupies but an hour in the early part of 
the evening, the distance makes it a supercedence of every other 
engagement. But, still, the Lectures of the Mercantile Library 
form a course which it is a pity for an intelligent " keeper-up 
with the times" to miss ; and, whether our idea of " The Tri- 
angle" is thought practicable or no, we hope there may be either 
a repetition of these high-class lectures up-town, or a transfer of 
the lecturing place of this excellent body of our citizens, to some 
more convenient neighbourhood. Clinton Hall, besides, is too 
small, miserably lighted and ill furnished. 

We have dot mentioned what would, after all, perhaps, be the 
greatest luxury of a concentration of evening resort to one neigh- 
bourhood — the chance to meet every body on common ground^ without 
the troiMe of a visit, and the consequent easy exchange of ideas, 
information, civilities, verbal engagements, acquaintance and 
observation. The Triangle would be a " dress place" or not, as 
public opinion should ordain — ^but that it would fraternize and 
socialize, cosmopolize and gay-ify the town, we think there can be 
little doubt — besides saving money and time, giving better support 
to Theatre and Opera, opening communication between Lecture- 
minds and the public, and (if it were done architecturally), very 
much embellishing a conspicuous part of the city. 



MIR PLAY TO " THE SPIRITS." 

One should be the Apostle of some kindly minority or other, 
in this day of tyrannical majorities. By listening humbly, with 
that spirit-ear to which come the faint whispers of duty, one may 
receive instructions of tolerable distinctness, we believe, as to the 
" cross" to be taken up, smaller or larger. We have had our 
"call"^ — we own it — long ago — and have moderately done its 
bidding, keeping our unsatisfied ear still open, however, in the 
hope of something more ambitious. Time flies, however, and 
death may overtake us, alas ! amid agreement with the many ! 
Let us shake off the dust of unanimity from our feet, while we 
may, and preach our poor little difference from this age of scoffing 
and disbelieving. Credulity is our gospel. Instead of begin- 
ning by doubting, we shall (as heretofore) begin by believing in 
all things which it were better were true — thus differing from the 
world about us. We shall believe the accused innocent till they 
are proved guilty — thus differing from the world about us. We 
shall believe the sunset of death is not without a lingering twilight 
of communication with the scenes it leaves behind — thus differing 
the world about us. We shall oppose injustice:? to ::c™ 
of opinion, and hear them with respect and deference — 



REASONABLY CREDULOUS. 351 



thus differing from the world about us. We shall listen to the 
praise of a brick, without abusing it for not being a diamond — 
thus differing from the world about us. 

The omniscience that is expected of our returning friends, 
" The Spirits," seems to us, among other things, to look a little 
like unbelief carried to persecution. We see no reasonable 
ground for supposing that John Smith, in one week after his 
death, is made acquainted with every thing, past, present and 
future — made able to go to Europe or Asia, for instance, between 
question and answer, and bring obituary data of the questioner's 
departed friends — yet this is exacted. He is called off from his 
new occupations, catechised, and criticised ; and his answering at 
oil is pronounced a humbug, if he fail to tell what nothing but 
omniscience would be sure of answering correctly. 

And there is another thing which seems to us an injustice to 
this same ex- John-Smith. There is a natural tendency in the 
common mind to assist an oracle. No great truth was ever born 
into the world that did not start with the discredit of a Nazareth, 
and uneducated people are invariably the first to receive a revela- 
tion. But these ignorant first believers are not thereby rendered 
superhuman. They are still subject to their weaknesses as before 
— still susceptible of bias and untruth. In the first place, they 
may misunderstand poor John Smith, who has to speak to them 
through a newly discovered and imperfect alphabet, and, in the 
next place, they are nervously anxious to make Mm appear wiser 
than he is, while their vanity is interested to show themselves to 
equal advantage. John Smith's ghost may thus be greatly 
assisted and misrepresented, and the general credit of ghosts may 
be tested and condemned for what they never had the least idea 
ef doing or saying. 

16 



362 DEATH'S TO-MORROW. 



One other risk of injustice — in case Spirits have memories and 
still yearn to communicate with those they have passed a life in 
loving. It would, of course, be only communications of negative 
character and trifling importance that could be made public. 
The questions likely to be asked of the dead are upon subjects too 
sacred for newspaper mention. The most earnest seekers for 
spirit-converse would be those whose delicate and sensitive natures 
shrink most from the ridiculing cross-questioning of the scoffer. 
We are likely, for this reason, to have the best proof of spirit- 
revisitings carefully shut from us ; and we may protest, in common 
fairness, we think, therefore, against any conclusive argument 
based upon the dialogues that are published. The firmest 
believers whom we know, in this trans-Styxian telegraph, are 
highly intellectual persons, who have no desire to convert the 
incredulous, and who would sooner publish their private letters 
to the living than what they believe to be their hallowed converse 
with the dead. 

It is due to this, as to any important new theory, that the 
indirect probabilities of its being true should be taken into the 
question. With knowledge miraculously enlarging in every other 
direction, it seems natural that we should make at least some 
measurable progress in comprehending the spirit's first step into 
the next existence. It is not reasonable to suppose that death is 
always to be a terror ; and it would not be at all out of measure, 
with other Providential ameliorations of human life, if we were 
yet to look forward to a clearly understood to-morrow heyond the 
grave, as we do now to a morning beyond a night of weariness — 
laying off our bodies, without fear, as we lay off our garments to 
go to sleep. Such a softening of our lot would not come about in 
a day, nor by a miracle, but would easily arrive by a gradual 



UN-IMAGINATIVE AGE. 363 



letting of light into the first dread darkness of eternity, and by 
enabling us to speak, from this side the brink, to those who are 
beyond. 

There would almost seem to be divine purpose enough, in 
giving us this glimmering look into the spirit-world, if it were 
only to awaken a little the imaginatioUj that seems under paralysis in 
the age we live in. The Bible is all true, but it is all poetry, 
too ; and our Saviour's medium for what he came to teach was 
the language of that very imagination which, in the present day, 
throws discredit over any new matter that it is employed to 
illustrate. To give us something startling, and yet vague, to 
believe, is likely to awaken us, if anything could, from the 
unhealthy torpor of unbelief, in which the blood for the highest 
activities of the soul lies stagnant. 

But, of the indirect evidences in favour of the reality of this 
new spirit intercourse, none seems to us stronger than its mode- 
rate beginnings and its apparent incapability of being turned to 
bad uses. Pretension would have made bolder experiments. 
Diabolical ingenuity would have given voice sometimes to the 
passions that die with us, and would have lent its aid to cove- 
tousness, ambition and revenge. But the holier and purer 
affections have alone found a voice. Nothing has even seemed to 
have the power of communicating with us, in this way, except 
that which would confirm or awaken goodness. It favours 
nothing, (as Grod is quite capable of arranging,) that belongs 
exclusively to this world. On the contrary, its tendency is to set 
a guard over our secret motives and actions, and to make us feel, 
while it keeps alive the memory of the good who have gone 
before, that they are still within communion, and more with us in 
proportion as we are worthier. We repeat, that, if it is " all 



364 THE -KNOCKERS." 



humbug," it is odd that bad people make no handle of it. 
This, and other signs, make it look, to us, less like a humbug 
than what might reasonably be conjectured by a religious enthu- 
siast, to be an apparent preparation for the coming about of the 
millenium. 

We have said, thus far, only what we think s!:ould fairly be 
allowed, to the " Spirits," even by those who do not believe ; and 
what we presume may be interesting, in the way of suggestion, to 
those who are reading or conversing on the subject. For 
ourselves, we shall enter into no controversy and define no 
belief — but we shall endeavour to see that the " Knockers" get 
fair play, and we shall neglect no knowledge, of spirits or spirit- 
land, which patience, experiment and a liberal credulity can 
give us. 



!AY 31334 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesiunn Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 

Preservationlechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




QDD5t,S54EEE 



T" '* 






